Different Lives and Different Times
by CampionSayn
Summary: Summary inside. Rated M for safety. Armada. Drabble sets count 10&One-shots 3.
1. Introductions

Title: Different Lives and Different Times.  
Summary: Drabbles and snippets and sentences based off of a few different stories with the Armada humans and if they became Cybertronian. A shout out to **MissCHSparkles, Simply Crisis, saphiredmoon** and **StoryMaker7** for the inspiration to these! These come from music inspiration and just word prompts. Armada-verse, with hints of other continuities.  
Warnings: There is an inter-connecting story to all these drabbles, but you need to look for it, and these are broken drabbles and such because I can't bring myself to write anything full length and believe that if I _did _I'd hate myself forever. Slash and het.  
Post Warning: Please no flames. Pretty please, with smiles and cookie dough on top?

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Rebirth:

The first time they got a look at their new forms, they had been… confused and excited. The boys took it better than the one girl, all compliments and thanks to the Autobots for saving them, but she had practically curled up and into herself. She got over it eventually, but not without resistance.

Eye to Eye- Disney:

"This would be so much easier if Sideways was a good guy, dude."

Billy sighed but agreed. Carlos and he were attempting to perform in their motorcycle forms, Grindor and Sparkplug in disguise and enjoying themselves as the now dark purple Kawasaki and sandy orange Honda showed them about Las Vegas. Carlos was having a bit harder of a time, considering Grindor kept accidentally making him accelerate.

Full Circle:

"Optimus, I'm sorry. I really am, but if a guy like that teaches the way he does, he can't push someone and expect them not to push back."

The tall blue and red mech stared at the lighter blue youngling that every day started to look more like the commander than himself. What he said had merit. The teacher he'd assigned to Rad and Fred wasn't the best and had a shorter fuse than a stick of dynamite. Perhaps Scavenger would have been a better choice? At least he encouraged younglings to actually lay a hand on him.

Survival:

When they had first gotten to Cybertron, Alexis discovered something she had hoped she was wrong about. The Earth born emerald flyer was loathe to find that the planet's population had so very few femmes that she only got to meet Elita, whom Optimus was married to and a young femme called Arcee.

"Where are the other femmes, exactly?" Alexis had asked Hot Shot during training one day, secretly avoiding the other two Autobot ladies.

"Well, many of them hate this war and are stationed on other Transformer planets, most of them neutral," The yellow racer explained, catching her round-house kick before it impaled his optics, "Not far from here, on the planet Velocitron, a lot of them are gathered raising sparklings, who come here after they're old enough."

"That's stupid. If they want the war to end, they should do something about it, not run away with their tails between their legs."

True Light- DNAngel:

A Jeep. A big black Jeep was what Fred had become. He didn't mind so much, it was somewhat original, as far as Transformers went, but he often had trouble with his convertible hood.

Lucky for him, on Cybertron, the hood came in use. It wasn't every day that a mech decided to become a caretaker to sparklings, and he had volunteered to become a giant baby buggy. It was fun work and attracted some young femme's to him. For his sensitivity.

It's a Jungle Out There:

"So, these are the younglings from Earth? They don't look any different from us, though."

Needless to say, the kids' first meeting with the silver mech Jazz had gone less than swimmingly, but not all first impressions were correct. Jetfire knew the music lover from days at the academy and assured them that he could be trusted.

And then came the day he found the Mini-cons listening to Rad's MP3 Player. Suddenly the saboteur was very interested in anything and everything about these five beings.

"… And you're saying that you were organic? All soft and squishy and smaller than my digits?"

"For the fifteenth time, yes!" Billy exclaimed, yellow optics twitching in annoyance as he tried to doze into recharge, Jazz still listening to some song that the teen had grown to hate very much since that morning.

Brains:

"I'm not as stupid as you think I am," Circling the much smaller being, Thrust was enjoying the irritation he caused as Alexis stood over Starscream and Wheeljack, blood, not Energon, seeping from a deep cut in her left wing and shoulder strut. The tactician was happy he had been able to injure this creature that had actually knocked off his facemask.

That comment made Alexis smirk, scoffing a little, "Oh, believe me, you could _never_ be as stupid as I _think_ you are."

Designated Driver:

Rushing from the big black Decepticon he'd managed to somehow piss off in a neutral bar, Carlos kept an optic trained on the two fraggers who had dragged him there in the first place. It wasn't bad enough the two could only interact when Blurr was catching a buzz from high-grade, but now Sideswipe had suckered the Spaniard to be a part of it. Never mind that he didn't even get paid after this, but he was already smarting from Red Alert lecturing him after sneaking out with the other two and whining about losing his facemask the last time they went out.

Wicked:

Sureshock felt it wasn't fair. It had been five years since Earth and the scooter had yet to been able to power link with his girl. High Wire amplified the gun on Rad's arm and Grindor could help Carlos go an extra hundred in horse power. What could the orange Mini-con do? Ride Alexis' shoulder, because trying to link with her led to him getting the worst virus ever and her passing out face first on the floor.

Perhaps he should study the data on her internal system? After all, she had blood flowing through her wiring and the others didn't. She drank low-grade only every three days while the guys drank regularly any grade of Energon available in bulk… Or, maybe he should just stop obsessing over it and be glad he didn't get sucked dry by his Bulk?

… Slag it all.

Lights:

"What exactly are they doing?" Sunstreaker asked his twin curiously, helm tilted to one side as the post-organics decorated the youngling dorms with thousands of little red, blue, yellow, etc. lights strung on long green wires. Fred and Billy had brought in a tall green, pointy organic… thing earlier and were currently planting very fragile balls and stick things on it.

"Celebrating a holiday from Earth. It's really quite fun once you get into it. Plus, later they'll all lie under the tree and stare up through the branches at all the pretty displays the lights make." Sideswipe explained, happy to finally know something his twin didn't have a clue about.

Divided:

"I can't believe this happened," Carlos moaned, right hand pinching the bridge between his optics while his personality induced left hand punched the medical berth he sat on, "I finally got used to this body and one shot from Cyclonus not only puts the right side of my brain on mute, it turns my left arm into a complete ass."

"Ah, come on Carlos. It's not every day a person discovers another side of himself! And it's in the physical realm, too." Sideswipe gushed, Red Alert beside him checking Carlos' brain activity on the computer.

"Yeah, but the problem is my other side won't listen to me!" The Spaniard's red optics narrowed, the gray digits of his left hand now deciding how boring this conversation was and tapping to a song Carlos couldn't even remember.

Face Down- Red Jumpsuit Apparatus:

"How did this happen?" Alexis asked as calmly as she possibly could, eyeing the dent in Arcee's faceplate suspiciously. She might not have liked the other femme very much, but she'd only seen that look of shame back on Earth, the lame excuses doing nothing to throw her.

"It's n-nothing… nothing at all. Really, Sentinel didn't mean to, I just took the argument too far—"

"Sentinel hit you?!" Teal optics flashed and Arcee had no time to react before the much younger femme snarled and took off for the main hall, ready as ever to finally beat that obnoxious wanker within an inch of his life.

Dreamfasting:

"What's a dream?"

Slightly taken aback, Fred just sort of stared at the little blue and grey mech that had been left in his care for a few days by Optimus and Red Alert. He'd never been graced with a sparkling that had the upgrade to speak yet, and it was daunting to see that this one spoke so well.

"Well, little one, a dream is when you go into recharge and you experience and see things that you normally wouldn't see in your waking hours. It's hard to explain, really."

"Try, please?"

Doubles, Take Another Turn:

They looked almost exactly like Starscream, but the paintjobs. They didn't share his personality, but were just as irritating and prideful.

Rad had the urge to run away screaming, or fall down laughing. So, Starscream was the baby of Seeker triplet brothers? The blue mech would die laughing at least.

"What's so funny, Autobot?" The blue one (what was his name... Thundercracker?) questioned, laser gun raised to provoke fear, failing abysmally as Rad fell to the ground choking on his own laughter. Skywarp stood beside Thundercracker, not looking at the foolish mech, but at Starscream, who's Energon had snuck up to his faceplate.

Coming Out:

"Are you hitting on me?"

Swindle continued to fidget in the face of the scooter. He would not back down, he refused after all this time waiting to ask Sureshock out to an Energon bar to surrender because the other wasn't picking up the subtle flirtations the red racer was throwing his way! Primus, why did he have to fall for someone so clueless? At least if he had gone after Blackout, he'd get a yes or no or a simple 'get bent' after the invite.

Pumpkins:

Billy was pissed, Billy was enraged, Billy could not look more calm as he stared at Sunstreaker across the small table in the small restaurant of Iacon.

"I was really drunk and he was willing."

"…That's it? That's all you're gonna say to excuse yourself? Your brother has been wanting Blurr since who knows how long, you interface with him and that's all you're going to say?!" Black servos clenched tight around the Energon cube he hadn't touched since this discussion began. The post-human wouldn't hit the yellow mech, though. If he didn't think of something much better to say, Billy had a much better way of making him miserable.

Iris- Live:

"Oh My God! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Optimus Prime was not one to get angry very easily, but slag it, this was a time meant just for him and Elita, not him, Elita and Carlos, who had been unfortunate enough to open the door to the Commander's private chambers while he and the femme under him were occupied.

Thank Primus for the Spaniard's left arm having enough sense to shut the door before the weights Optimus threw at him made contact with his facemask. It would have been nice if the rest of the dark purple mech would take the hint and leave instead of continuing to apologize on the other side of the now dented metal.

"Go away!" Elita ordered very loudly. That was all Carlos needed and he was out of there.

Consider This:

Wasp, the second shortest mech in the Autobot trainee program headed by Sentinel Prime, looked at Bumblebee, the shortest mech in the trainee program, and tried not to tune out his annoying voice while he spoke a mile a minute.

"Okay, you want to say that a third time at a reasonable rate?"

Bumblebee took a nice long breath, intakes shuddering as he let the oxygen run through his systems and did exactly as Wasp said, "I finally saw the post-organic mechs in the wash wracks! Without their battle armor, all exposed and stuff!"

One of Wasp's optic ridges raised curiously. So far, none of the Cybertronians had seen the Earth sparked beings minus their armor yet, and admittedly, he was intrigued that this glitch-headed fragger had managed to actually shower with them. Now, he might actually get to find out what the smoking hot freaks looked like without their protective gear.

"Who's the hottest?"

"…So hard to choose. I'm torn between Rad and Billy, since they both are so… well-endowed."

Teenagers- My Chemical Romance:

Standing rigid before Prime, Prowl tried to think of a way to get out of watching his charges. Normally he could handle younger Transformers with one arm tied behind his back, but these ones….

Being from Earth obviously gave what Hot Shot called teenagers the ability to ignore everything anybody told them and still come out alive, especially in battle training. This was something Prowl could not handle, his processors could barely accept that two of them were still partially organic and all were basically immortal. He'd crash if he had to train them alone. Again.

Choke:  
"What is the name of this planet, again?"

"Charr."

"….Of course it is."

Jetfire found himself missing Starsceam. At least when something bothered him, he'd make it clear with a declaration of hate and loathing. With Alexis, on the other hand, it took an interpreter or Sureshock to fully understand what she meant. What with the whole tone of voice divided by the speed of the sentence plus her facial expressions (which she didn't even have in jet mode) it's exhausting flying with her. Give him a few Mini-cons and third-rate trainees any day.

Anything was better than a mission with femmes.

Lawyer:

"In all technicality, Sentinel can't send Bumblebee off to work on warp gates and kick him out of the trainee program just because Mr. Yellowjacket thought someone was a spy and was completely wrong."

Ultra Magnus, large as life and twice as ominous as everyone said he was, stood before Sentinel (prosecutor), Bumblebee (the accused) and Billy (trying to remember every detail and loop-hole he'd ever read in the academy Optimus had sent all the post-organics to) as this was something that had caused quite an uproar among the troops.

"How do you figure that, sub-compact?" The obnoxious blow-hard both Billy and Alexis had come to hate asked, scoffing as the Earth male kept looking at Bumblebee, desperation not showing, but plainly obvious in his urgency before Magnus.

"You were there when Bumblebee opened Wasp's locker, but you never bothered to actually interrogate Wasp on why the Decepticon comm. link was there and why "Longarm" was so enthusiastic to help prove Wasp was a spy. The fact that Longarm was actually the Decepticon Shockwave proves that he was manipulating Bumblebee and put the comm. link there himself."

"Are you saying Bumblebee shouldn't be reprimanded for consorting with Shockwave, young one?" Ultra Magnus asked finally.

Billy bowed his head politely, "Reprimanded, perhaps, sir. But, not to this degree. Bumblebee, at the time, was completely unaware that Shockwave was even an enemy, all he saw was someone willing to help him expose a traitor. Also, if not for Bumblebee exposing Shockwave, Wasp would have been sent to the stockades. On the other hand, Sentinel Prime did not follow up on the accusations and as the sergeant in charge of all trainees in this camp it falls to him to take responsibility for what happened, sir."

"Why, you little-" Sentinel began, attempting to grab at the pumpkin mech, if not for Magnus stopping him with a look.

"Very well," The leader-bot decided, turning back to Bumblebee who had, astoundingly, remained silent through the whole ordeal, "Cadet Bumblebee, you will continue to train at this camp with every other bot, including Cadet Wasp. The charges against you are dropped. Be grateful to Cadet… what was your name again?"

"Billy, sir." The post-human answered for the fourth time that hour, not rolling his optics considering that it was hard for most Cybertronians to remember any of the post-humans' names.

"Yes. Be grateful to him."

"…I am, sir." The yellow mech finally said, blushing as Billy grinned triumphantly.

Testosterone Boys, Harlequin Girls:

Hauling a tank two to three times heavier than she, through other Decepticon infested territories, was not Alexis' idea of a good time. In fact, were she in a less sentimental state of mind, she would simply have dropped Demolisher in the waters below. However, she just wasn't a killer. Prowl and Scavenger had tried to drill it into her head, there was no room for sympathy towards the enemy. But, the emerald jet had known Demolisher since Earth, she felt it would be dangerous to leave Cyclonus' best friend to die.

And really, if Cyclonus lost Demolisher, his personal conscious, he'd probably more dangerous to the Autobots. Thus, technically, she was doing the other Autobots a favor, they just didn't know it yet.

Kung Fu:

"Need a little help there, Jazz?" Hot Shot chuckled, making no move as the saboteur pulled himself from the hole he'd made in the wall of the training room.

The silver mech wouldn't have accepted the help anyway, grumbling that the kick the yellow sports car had landed had been a lucky shot. He moved back into a fighting stance, feeling he'd be ready for Hot Shot this time….

Two nanoseconds later, the music lover was knocked front first to the floor, Hot Shot's foot holding him down half-heartedly.

"Curse you and that planet you just came from…"

Entertain Me:

"Ladies and Gents could you please take your seats, and we hope you all enjoy the show!"

The Energon bar could not hold another Transformer and the teens couldn't be happier. Both Autobots and Decepticons had come thanks to a few strings Hot Shot and Wheeljack had pulled on behalf of Rad and Carlos.

Megatron and Optimus themselves had agreed to set aside their differences to enjoy the evening and let their troops mingle for the display the post-humans had promised to present. It wasn't every stellar cycle they'd see both femmes and mech humiliate themselves through song and dance.

Cyclonus and the Seeker trine had agreed to be in the first act, Cyclonus as the lead vocalist with Arcee who was to come in as Starscream and his brothers performed the Time Warp.

Medical Spectrum:

"Oh, this is the grossest thing ever…"

"You get used to it after a while. In a few days they'll be fine and we can get on with our other duties."

Looking over the two post-humans that were still a little organic, Ratchet, head medical officer of Iacon, had to suppress the urge to gag. Red Alert, a mech thousands of years younger than him, barely flinched at the sight presented as the green flyer and blue racer secreted fluid from pin-sized punctures in their armor, shuddered violently every few minutes and occasionally got up to empty their tanks of infected Energon. If this is what happened when organics became ill, Ratchet would be happy forever if he never went to planet Earth. Disgusting as it was, Red Alert said it was _minor_ in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of other diseases they could be suffering from.

"What is this illness called, again?"

"The technical term is influenza, but they say flu for short."

Charades:

The three post-humans circled Starscream in a way reminiscent of hyenas closing in on an injured wildebeest, all of them sporting a very malicious grin, teeth flashing as the moon over Cybertron blinked in and out between the clouds overhead.

The Seeker had brought this on himself.

"We hear," Carlos began, "That you have been hooking up with Jetfire for the last few weeks."

"Also," Billy chimed in, the horns at the back of his helm now becoming even more apparent to the red mech as the orange one tilted to one side and back, "We were wondering why you haven't told Alexis yet. We're quite sure she'd like to know."

Fred remained silent, deep blue optics not giving anything away as the Seeker seemed to finally understand why exactly he was there, these three trying to make him feel guilty for no real reason.

"Are the whole lot of you insane?" Starscream questioned, arms crossing, "She and I are friends, not lovers. We share a completely platonic relationship, and I was going to tell her the next time we met at that neutral bar in Iacon."

….Five seconds later all three mechs had a zero hostility reading and apologized for over-stepping. On the way back to base Billy commented how he'd never peg Starscream for playing for the other team.

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Okay, if nobody likes this, then fine. I can deal with that and understand that, since I most probably agree. But, in the unlikely event that you should like this horrendous train wreck, here are the post-humans descriptions for their new forms. Be warned, if you read all the way through this, they probably look better in your head than mine.

Rad-  
Optics: Dark, dark blue.  
Paintjob: Mostly light blue, except his hands and feet which are gold.  
Physical Features: Looks an awful lot like Optimus, but without the facemask and with smaller antennae.  
Alt. Form: A sports car with yellow stripes along the center of the hood.  
Weapons: A projectile gun in both arms, amplified when power linked with High Wire.  
Useless info: He has way more feeling in his hands and legs than other Transformers, because there's still bone in those areas of his form. He gets sick almost every year and finds it annoying that he always gives it to Alexis who suffers along with him. When sick, his temperature can rise to over two-hundred without coming close to killing him, just burning anybody stupid enough to touch him. Still a little organic, though not nearly as much as Alexis, maybe one fourth, with bone and like, three hormones and adrenaline.

Carlos-  
Optics: Red.  
Paintjob: Dark purple, bordering on black with grey hands  
Physical Features: He kind of looks like Blurr, facemask included, but no orange wings on the side and no glass covering the optics. Also, he has a pure black plate shaped a little like that thing on Scavenger's forehead.  
Alt. Form: A Kawasaki motorcycle.  
Weapons: Ice cannons hidden in his shoulder struts.  
Useless info: In an accident, the right side of his brain stopped reacting with the left and now, since Red Alert can't fix him without the risk of deactivating him, the Spaniard's left arm has its own personality whose sole purpose seems to either be saving Carlos' life or pissing him off.

Alexis-  
Optics: Teal.  
Paintjob: Emerald and extremely light, almost acid green.  
Physical Features: Her helmet is actually shaped almost like her hair-style had been, the metal actually shifts when she gets especially agitated, like a dog.  
Alt. Form: Sort of like a Seeker, except her wings curve back a little, like a giant metal manta ray.  
Weapons: She can discharge high volts of electricity through any focused point of her body if she gets angry or concentrates enough.  
Useless info: Half organic, she drinks only the lowest grade of Energon which gets converted into blood when it enters her systems. She feels Elita pities her and is annoyed by Arcee. In her alt. form she can swim through the ocean like a fish and prefers that to land and sky. The transformation has left her with some of her hormones and makes her agitated at that time of the month.

Billy-  
Optics: Yellow.  
Paintjob: Orange with black servos, elbow pads, foot pads and a line on his torso. Think of a jack-o-lantern.  
Physical Features: Think of a thinned out Jetfire without the facemask and a more rounded helm, little horns pointed out the back.  
Alt. Form: A Honda motorcycle.  
Weapons: His hands can detach from his body like a crude grappling hook or wrecking ball.  
Useless info: Has discovered that he can't get drunk. He has also decided to torture Jazz by avoiding any and all questions about Earth.

Fred-  
Optics: Deep blue.  
Paintjob: Black with red leg armor.  
Physical Features: Big and bulky. His hood in humanoid form attaches to his shoulders and sometimes falls down, making him look like he's wearing a cape.  
Alt. Form: A Jeep.  
Weapons: His whole frame, which has hidden spikes between each joint and plate. Some are toxic.  
Useless info: Tidal Wave seems to enjoy bowling him over as often as possible and gives him the creepiest stares. He scares Thrust since he's way more mellow than the other post-humans. He is also good at swimming for long distances.


	2. Encore

Okay, this is an up-date and lots of thanks to my supporters of this. I still think it's a little bit of a challenge… strike that, a BIG one, but it's fun on some level. Oh, and sorry about editing chapter one, but seeing too far in the future gives me head-aches when writing plotlines.

**Spring:**

Staying as far away from the center lane of the main road through all of Velocitron, Rad tried to ignore the look he was getting not only from the mechs and femmes on all sides of him, but also from Arcee who was forced to come with him. Sometimes it really sucked to have an alt mode that was from his home planet. Everyone always tried to either hit on him or damage his paintjob by throwing stuff at him. And by stuff, he meant low-grade Energon and oil.

Presently, on his way to find that speed demon femme who ran the planet, he was getting a particularly odd look from the femme behind him. True, in alt mode she didn't have optics to stare at him with, but he could tell.

"What? Do I have bugs on me or something?"

"Hm? Oh, no, sorry! I've just never seen your transformation… It's different."

**Riot- Three Days Grace:**

"Get off of me, you lousy excuse for a cat!"

"Make me, Decepticon parasite!"

Hovering above the reach of either angered party, Laserbeak tried to remain calm as Swindle tightened his legs around Ravage's waist, trying to cut off the Energon fuel line he knew was there, Ravage for the most part sinking his dentals far deeper into the racer's shoulder tires, both completely un-aware they had attracted attention. Really, this little skirmish was going too far, and Laserbeak knew he was going to get in trouble from Sureshock if he didn't get Swindle out while he was still mostly intact.

But what was the orange spy supposed to do? Peck Ravage in the optic? Last time that happened, he had to walk home missing a wing.

**Bar Flies:**

"Here comes Starscream, he's a Berserker!"

From the front of the Iacon neutral bar come the somewhat less than harmonious sounds of Starscream and Jetfire trying to create that sweet music of love, even going so far as to grope each other on stage. Neither could complain, they enjoyed it and the patrons enjoyed the eroticism of a dance they hadn't banked on seeing that evening.

From the back of the bar was another story. Their designated baby-sitter leaned against the bar counter with high-grade she couldn't drink but was having an enjoyable enough time just staring into. Tonight, Starscream and Jetfire had told the post-human they were together, which was quickly and immediately followed by her congratulating them and buying them the highest grade of Energon she could afford so they could start karaoke and leave her alone with her thoughts.

"Didn't think they'd actually tell you. What a surprise."

Spinning on her barstool, Alexis was confronted by Demolisher, his own high-grade in hand and what could only be a shit-eaters grin on his face.

Oddly, Alexis was happy it was him and not some other 'Con like Cyclonus or heaven forbid Skywarp and Thundercracker, hence her lax frame and attempt at a smile as he took the stool to her right, "Ah, yet another dick-smoker has graced me with his presence. Fun."

Demolisher grinned into his Energon. Wasn't very often she was in bad enough a mood that she'd say a phrase like _that_.

"Now, now, you know I don't play for the other team, miss kitty chaser. I'm too old and set in my ways to change now, so late in the game. Starscream switched a long time ago."

"Obviously." She replied, audios trying to blot out the sound of the two flyers changing to another human song, maiming it horribly in their sexually charged and drunken voices. She's never listen to Anything You Can Do… without a headache again.

**Perfect World:**

"Is it just me, or do you just want to rip out that guy's interface cable the second he says more than five syllables?"

The procession of laughter Billy received from Wasp and Bumblebee on his comment came swiftly and painfully as they both dropped the weights they'd been practicing with in their fit of giggles. The two trainees agreed whole-heartedly.

"Well, Mirage has had that way about him ever since the War. He was too stupid to prepare and lost all his wealth a year into it," Wasp explained, watching from outside the training room as the mentioned 'Bot and Sentinel exchanged reports within the Prime's office. The pumpkin motorbike nodded, also eyeing the femme that stood beside the mech who was unfortunate enough to share his name with a Mini-con. She looked timid, but cute and obviously well polished, like she'd only just come into the world.

"Think she's joining the camp?"

**Baby Shower:**

"I shouldn't be here, I really shouldn't! A medic should be here with clean equipment, not me and some rookie from another planet!"

Okay, tuning out Sentinel's voice was getting steadily much harder for Fred to do as he tried to help this femme who had been unfortunate enough to be in the elevator with them, through her labor. Thank God for those lessons he got from Ratchet and First Aid before joining Sentinel's trainees, or he wouldn't have a clue about what to do at the moment.

"Can you open the doors or not?" The slightly smaller mech asked, ignoring the pain as the femme cried out again and tightened her grip on his fingers.

"No!" Sentinel answered, taking one giant step back as the femme's legs spread apart and some fluid leaked from her port.

Through all this, the ebony post-human remained calm, reassuring the femme that everything would be alright and if worse came to worse; he knew the procedure for delivering sparklings. It was only a half lie, really. He'd completed half the training and then got shipped off to Sentinel, but it wasn't all that different from human birth. Open the legs make sure the contractions reach critical mass before you start telling the mother to push and then catch the baby like a football. And the best part was there was no placenta to wait for afterwards, no stitching of a torn vaginal cannel and not much risk of a breach.

**Chronic:**

Scavenger wasn't one to brag that before he took the side of the Autobots he did a little dealing in illegal substances and until this moment didn't think it mattered if anyone knew. He didn't use anymore and on the very few occasions that he did, it was to get over a painful injury. He just never thought anyone would find the stuff.

Standing on all sides of him, Sunstreaker, Jazz and Carlos gave him disappointed looks, Carlos himself holding the packet of black liquid that looked like it came from the stomach of a creature that spat tar in his left hand. Had the warrior not been seasoned in the art of receiving such looks, he might have flinched. But, considering it was these three and not, say, Optimus or Smokescreen, he kept stock still, no guilt or explanation offered.

"I'm not an addict. That's strictly for war wounds. It's not what you think. Any of these thoughts coming to mind about now?" Carlos asked, left hand crushing the packet involuntarily.

**Vicious:**

Elita One, leader of the femmes of the Autobots, looked on at the display presented in the training camp disbelievingly. She had been to most the camps this week looking for new recruits to add to her squad and was now sure and certain that this was the best place to find them. Sentinel Prime had a knack for annoying every femme who wasn't drunk and Elita had to more than once stop her second in command, Chromia, from blowing a hole through the sexist fragger.

And really, watching him get beaten down by a female trainee was too good to be true. Seeing as all trainees were required to battle their sergeant once a week, Elita wondered how often he lost.

"Sentinel, how good to see you," Elita greeted as the Prime landed in a heap before her, one of his arms torn in half and cracks in his anatomy sparking brilliantly in other areas, "Ultra Magnus sent me here to have a look at the femmes in your care. Any you'd like to recommend for me?"

"Elita! H-how nice it is to see you in our humble camp! I really wasn't—Alexis, stop! You won already, now let me go!"

**Hey, Mickey!- Bring It On!:**

Shivers ran all through Red Alert as Cyclonus hung off his frame, completely and utterly drunk out of his mind from the high-grade. He still was gripping Red Alert's aft without a care in the world, and the medic was just about ready to drop kick him and leave him in the gutter to be ripped open for spare parts.

… But, then, he was the most reasonable and responsible mech in galaxies, in his opinion, so better he just continue on this endeavor and be happy the helicopter would _so_ owe him for this. True, Cyclonus would most likely deny everything, but Red Alert would just love to see the look on his face when he woke up in the medic's quarters the next morning. Red Alert would love to take the green optic mech home, but that would result in Decepticons on sentry duty shooting at him with lasers, or far worse, flame throwers. Blah.

"Can I get a kiss from you now?" Cyclonus asked, leaning in as well as he could, words slurring and hand clenching the medic's more sensitive areas all of a sudden.

"You most certainly can—Mmph!!" Too late.

**Heart, Beat, Twist:**

"Um, I can't feel him breathing."

Jolting up without any warning to Shockwave or Wheeljack, Demolisher moved over beside the unconscious Rad, dark blue optics closed and chassis indeed discontinuing any movement. This was beyond bad. Megatron would not only be extremely angry that their only clue to Optimus' location was dead, but once Starscream or Alexis found out they could all say good-bye to their sparks.

Lucky for the tank he'd watched the occasional medical drama on the monitor screens of the moon base when nobody else was around.

Resting his audios against where the post-human "heart" was, Demolisher could just make out the thudding of a beat. Heartbeat, that's right.

"His heart's still beating, which means there's brain activity, we just need to send it a message."

Shockwave looked completely clueless at his words, but Wheeljack assisted the tank in removing the light blue armor just over Rad's chest area, revealing two dark nodes where the post-humans nipples had been. Demolisher then took both servos, grabbed the nodes and _twisted_.

The result was instantaneous. Rad's face and optics lit up as he took in gulps of air to scream.

**Paper Bag- Anna Nalick:**

Blackout was not having fun. To say the least, he was ready to do a "Madam Butterfly". As soon as he caught both Frenzy and Scorponok _somehow_, he was going to slip a wire around both their necks, take them to the top of a skyscraper and push them off, wire attached to the railing. That would be a fantastic, inspirational sight for all. Well, maybe not to their respective masters, but to everyone else who'd they'd ever sent off the deep end it would be a masterpiece.

"Get back here with my weapons, damnit! I fucking mean it, that's my stuff!"

Perhaps he should have remembered that human curses only amused them and added to their wish to torture him like a pair of sparklings on an Energon rush.

**Seeker Workings:**

The first time Alexis found a set of Decepticon sparkling triplets, she was unsure what to do. She had been on break from camp and was checking out some ruined city that the Autobots had won back from the 'Cons. The three were huddled around the body of their dead mother, clicking pitifully and shivering when they noticed this strange being.

The post-human knew if she took them to Sentinel it would turn out badly and there was no one else she could turn to in the Autobots, so she did something rather dangerous, if not fantastically stupid. She gathered all three of the little ones in her arms and transported them just to the edge of a Decepticon camp that she knew Starscream and his brothers were stationed. She stood upon a tall pile of rocks, the sparklings hidden behind her, and sent out a distress call.

Five minutes later, the Seeker Trine headed her way in a standard 'V' formation, Starscream in the lead and the first to identify her before any of them started shooting, signaling Thundercracker and Skywarp to land and wait a moment.

Walking up to his sort-of friend, Starscream hadn't yet seen or heard the sparklings and was curious if not a little worried about why Alexis had called.

"Alexis, what are you doing here? It's the middle of the night and if we hadn't been awake, one of the others would have killed you by now."

The green female kept her optics trained on the red mech, shuffling a little, "I… I really need your help with something Starscream."

"Why? What happened? Did someone hurt you?"

She shook her head, quickly turning to jump off the rock and land gracefully next to the sparklings, picking them all up and taking her place back where she'd been with the other Seeker. He had a slack-jawed look upon his face and didn't even register his brothers both hauling their afts up the rock formation once the sparklings started chirping in confusion, "…Where did these three come from?"

"I found them. Their mother's dead and I wasn't sure what to do."

"Why, take them back to the Autobot nursery, silly fem," Thundercracker suggested, sounding much more chipper than she'd ever heard him be.

Skywarp, on the other hand, actually took notice of their design and coloring. All of them were little winglets, possibly jets, one white and black, one yellow and red and one all grey. All had green eyes, "Unless… Are these even Autobot sparklings?"

"No."

All three looked at the femme like she'd grown a second head. Autobots, even the nice thoughtful femmes and leaders, never returned sparklings to the Decepticons. They always kept them to rear them themselves to suit the means to their own ends. Never mind that the sparkling had a distraught parental unit somewhere.

Starscream was the first to react again, grinning at his Earth born friend in understanding, reaching his arms out to take the sparklings from her, "Do you want us to find their mech Creator?"

"Yes. They want their daddy or at least, someone familiar," Alexis explained, handing each of the Seekers one sparkling.

The red Seeker nodded approvingly, grinning at the confused look on Skywarp's faceplate and the suspicious look on Thundercracker. His brothers didn't understand femmes at all, and those were the ones from Cybertron, never mind this little post-human, half-organic teenager that was talking to them like they weren't even enemies. They were _scared_ of her, Starscream would bet.

"Alright, Alexis, we'll find their daddy. You have my word."

The green femme then left, leaving a short good-bye with Starscream. All three Seekers watched her go, and after she disappeared from sight, Skywarp and Thundercracker just had to break the silence with a question each,

"Is she bonded?" "What's a 'daddy'?"

**Staring at the Sun:**

"I can't believe you just fraggin' shot me!"

"I told you not to give me the gun! You should know by now that I don't carry guns! It says so right in my file, or did you even bother to read that?!"

As used to these situations as he was, Blurr still couldn't stave off the migraine working its way into his systems like a river whose dam had broken to pieces. Most of the neural circuits behind his optics and in the very back of his helm were flaring up quite painfully as he tried to hold Jazz down so he and Carlos could pull the shrapnel pieces out. The darker, younger mech had a point, Jazz being one of the higher ups should have realized by now that giving Carlos any kind of weapon was a big no-no. Not only because he was a crack shot, but because his psychotic left hand would always steal it from his right hand to attempt to play air guitar with it.

Hence the situation they were now in. Medics rarely came to the firing range and the voluntary one on duty had just gone out to lunch, so they were on their own. Jazz was obviously _thrilled_.

"Owowow, that hurts! Blurr, please be nice to that node, that area is very sensitive! Yeow! Carlos, what the frag was that for?"

"Apparently my right brain wants you to stop whining like a two month old sparkling!"

"I thought you couldn't communicate with your right brain?!"

"I can't, but I can see Blurr just fine!"

Before the music lover could come up with some wittier than thou comeback Blurr got fed up, pushed a much larger amount of his arm into Jazz's injury and yanked out the shrapnel. He spun the ugly little piece through his digits for a few seconds while Jazz cursed the sniper out in five different languages, two including Earth, Spanish and English.

**Teach Me:**

It was times like these that Starscream was just so… grateful, to be in such a clandestine relationship with the vice commander of the Autobots. While it was so very true that they were as different as two fliers could be, they still loved each other. Maybe their closeness would build bridges. It wasn't as if nobody knew, as a matter of fact half their comrades knew just after their first night together.

"That's it, right there…"

And, of course, the bonuses were awesome. Before Jetfire, Starscream had interfaced with the occasional one night stand, but had never in his life stuck around for them to amount to anything. Relationships in the Decepticons could get you killed as quickly as a surprise grenade under your feet or as slowly as carefully put out poison. And Starscream liked living.

"See? I told you this would feel good."

Jetfire's track record wasn't much better. In fact, it was much worse, considering the few relationships that _had_ lasted tended to end in him almost getting killed. Three relationships had ended with something being smashed over his head, one had ended in him being shot at through the barracks and the last ended with him being raped and Optimus himself beating the fluids out of the other mech. The dear red Seeker before him was the first mech he'd been with in a hundred plus stellar cycles.

"You are… so good… at this…"

**Lullaby For a Stormy Night:**

Being alone, by now, should have been something Bumblebee was used to by the time he got to Autobot training, but there are just some things you're not meant to get used to. Technically speaking he was only to be in solitary for two more days for accidentally setting off a Gatling gun while training on the field. He would have only gotten a stern lecture and two hundred transform-ups, but one of the rounds had hit Sentinel and blown off his right arm. Now, five days later and with two to go, the yellow 'Bot was feeling not only worthless but may have been going insane.

He sighed, but two seconds later he almost hit the low ceiling at three taps ringing against his locked door.

"…Hello?" The now jittery racer answered, leaning forward on the thrashed mat that was his berth and his floor for the time being. It wasn't meal time yet, so who'd come to see him? Ooh, maybe it was Sentinel coming to let him out early? Unlikely, but he had to hold out on a little hope.

"Bumblebee, it's Fred. You okay in there?"

"Well, yeah, kinda. Don't have to do any transform-ups, get decent Energon three times a day, don't have to actually move…"

"You're losing your mind, aren't you?"

"…Yes. I'd eat my own tires this moment if it would get me out of this Pit!" Bumblebee moaned, turning away from the door to hit his forehelm on the wall that he'd already dented along with the mechs who'd done so before him.

He stopped this action when the lowest of chuckling could be heard from Fred, muffled by the thick door separating Bumblebee from his teammates, the camp and his ability to move without hitting a wall or ceiling.

"Well, if that's the case, I've got some fabulous news for you," The black medical student said, fingers scratching the door from the outside, "Billy confronted Sentinel, and the sergeant, after a little convincing, agreed that you could come back out if any of us could get you out of here without a key."

This was greeted by the yellow mech flinging himself at the door, bright blue optics peeking through the slot that was used to give him Energon. It made Fred think of a cat trying to get out of a cupboard.

"You can do that right? I'll worship you forever if you can do that!"

Fred's optics rolled, sometimes the young mech was too much, "Of course I can get you out. We post-humans have the keys to the city."

Not bothering to explain what that meant, one of the spikes that lurked under Fred's armor poked out from the end of his pointer finger and the Jeep slid it directly into the key hole. He twirled it counter-clockwise and then withdrew the spike with a smirk. A loud rumble sounded throughout the mechanisms in the lock and bippitty-boppitty-boo, the door opened to reveal Bumblebee practically weeping in joy.

Fred had no time to react as the yellow mech tasted freedom and pounced upon the bigger mech, lavishing compliments, hugs and kisses upon Fred, who, despite agreeing half-heartedly, kept repeating that it wasn't at all necessary. Even when they got back to camp, Bumblebee wouldn't get off of Fred's back. Until, of course, he saw Billy, and ran after him to thank him and repeat the process.

**Flaws:**

"Alright, that's it! That is the last straw! I've had it!"

Sentinel was pretty sure he should have started running at the end of her first exclamation, but being the ego-maniac that he was, he stood his ground in the face of the one current trainee he had that not only didn't fear him, but also certainly didn't take any of his slag.

He would later regard this as quite possibly the worst decision of his life.

"I was willing to overlook your obvious sexist, fascist behavior towards me and every other femme here. I was willing to overlook the fact that you wouldn't fix a space the femmes could recharge in that didn't have the mechs staring at us in our sleep. I was even willing to forget the time you walked in on me in the wash racks even though I had a sign saying not to come in. This, however, I will not stand for. You do not get to humiliate Moonracer or Firestar to the point of tears because you think it will make them better soldiers!"

At this point, Alexis was mere inches from his face, teeth bared and armor on her head bristling, the mentioned femmes standing behind her, looking quite shocked that she was standing up for them when she didn't even like them. Moonracer was new and treated with open hostility by the Earth female and Firestar barely spoke to her, so why defend them?

"Was anything I said untrue?" The much taller Transformer asked, one of his optic ridges raising and making him look quite snobbish.

"No," Alexis admitted, but a scary look crossed over her face, causing the sergeant to lean a few inches back, "But, since you wanna play that card, I might as well play it too."

Making a quick transformation to her alt mode, Alexis flew out of Sentinel's office and into the broadcasting room where announcements sounded off at all hours of the day. She startled Wasp, who was on duty to receive any calls for their sergeant, but stood completely still as she grabbed the comm. speaker, turned it on, and said something that was heard from there to Kaon through the radio waves.

"Attention! Let it be known that Sentinel Prime is the lowest, most vile mech in the history of Cybertron. He is a cowering, bullying, pretentious bastard. A self-serving lowlife! A worthless, out-dated pile of scrap! An idiotic, wimpy, degenerate whose got his head so far up Ultra Magnus' aft, nobot can tell where Sentinel ends and Magnus begins! He is also a sexist who treats the femmes in his unit like the dirt beneath his feet and has no moral quarter when it comes to treating them like sentient beings. If any mech is listening to this, I hope you get to see our sergeant and tell him what a _big_ mech he is. Thank you."

When she left, Wasp's jaw was hanging so wide open it looked like it was going to break off and hit the ground… as did all the mech's she passed by on her way back to Sentinel's office with a bounce in her step they'd never be likely to see again.

Across the planet, it was similar for all the other officers who'd been listening in, including Optimus Prime, the Autobot Elite, the Decepticons and Megatron. Optimus, a week later, along with Ultra Magnus and Elita One, had a two hour talking to with Sentinel who shook the entire time.

A week after _that_, Megatron sent out a few of his most trusted to give their own "lecture" to the now shaking, wreck of a Cybertronian.

**Break Free:**

Dentals snapping at ropes around their necks made them look like rabid Terracons, but frankly, Billy and Carlos didn't give a damn. They wanted out, they wanted out that second. After two weeks in the prison camp the Decepticons, with their weapons rendered useless, had put them in for whenever they wanted to interrogate them, the two Earth motorcycles were getting pissed.

They had been put in a pen, attached to thick, heaving ropes around their necks tied to posts at opposite ends. They could see and talk to each other, but not reach and touch. Being the set of post-humans that were the least organic of the five, didn't mean that being alone wouldn't upset them. Like any animal, they craved touch, if only once in a while and fleetingly. Not the beatings the Decepticons administered on them, but actual, human touch.

Thus far, Carlos had taken to gnawing his rope, but had only gotten a third of the way through it. Billy had started digging at the ground that held his post, making much more head-way even if his servos kept knocking against the post and scraping his armor rather painfully. Even if it hurt, they were going to get out. Out of this pen, and out of this camp. If it cost them their lives, so be it, but they couldn't stay much longer or they just might go insane or worse, try and kill each other.

"That won't help either of you very much. If I could hear you, what's to say someone else can't?"

Both jumping at the voice coming from the entrance to the pen, both young mechs turned to see someone unexpected staring at them. Not gloating like the others would have, just staring in an almost sad way.

"D-Demolisher! What… what are you doing here?" Billy asked, moving his body to block the sight of the hole around his post, rather like Carlos moving the rope to the back of his neck. It didn't do much, if any, good, though.

Demolisher didn't answer, in fact, he just remained still. Once in a while, he would look around, as if he was afraid someone would see him. That couldn't be right…

"What are you doing here, Decepticreep?" Carlos asked, tone harsh and mean. The Decepticons that ran the pen had taken a fancy to hurting the dark motorcycle, mentally and physically and it was really beginning to take its toll on him.

The tank didn't say a word, rather, he did something that would be, to many, a grave mistake, but he'd made much bigger mistakes. Many, many mistakes, and none of them had done him any real good. Maybe this would change the flow of such mistakes happening anymore? Or it would get him killed by Megatron himself… Eh, only one way to find out.

Two shots were fired, muffled by the silencer Demolisher had bought from a merchant that he'd never actually thought he'd ever have to use. One shot hit and ripped right through the rope around Carlos' neck, some still attached to the purple mech and the rest plopping to the ground. The other shot also hit Billy's rope, leaving it broken rather like Carlos', but a bit longer in length.

Neither of the teenagers made a move or spoke. They just stood where they were, staring disbelievingly at the tank who'd basically just set them free, if not for him standing before the only exit.

Demolisher just sort of smiled at the looks he was getting from them both, gave a little wave and walked in the opposite direction he'd come by, "I wish you luck on your way out. Better hurry, though, Blitzwing and Shockwave will be coming to interrogate you in exactly five human minutes. Tick-tock."

That was all the reason they needed to forget he was an enemy by rights and get the Pit out of there.

**Programming and Instinct:**

"Why do you do that?"

Turning his head toward Arcee, Rad considered the question the best he could. Why did humans follow their hearts and gut, but not their head?

"Because… It's our instinct. No matter what we're taught to do, there's always something in us that tells us whether something's right or wrong or dangerous. Sometimes, things that look safe can be dangerous and things that look dangerous, turn out safe. That's our instinct."

Arcee looked like she heard the words, but she wasn't processing them properly, her head tilted to one side like a confused puppy. Rad couldn't help but think she looked quite attractive like that, but shook it off once the thought entered his head. Can't hit on a lower ranking officer, uh-uh, nooo.

**Kiss Me Goodbye- Snakes On a Plane:**

"What do you mean you're fucking engaged?!"

Not a way to win the ladies back, but he wasn't talking to a lady, Hot Shot was talking to Wheeljack, and he was ready to blow a gasket, his optics twitching erratically and Energon roaring in his audios like Red Alert's… thingies that flashed red. Couldn't remembered what he called them, but not the point, Wheeljack was engaged and the yellow 'Bot had to hear it from that slimeball Thrust. How's that for rebuilding friendship?

Not that he was interested or anything… just curious…

**Anima, Animal, Beast, Terracon, Etc.:**

What Optimus had asked most of the cadets to do for his visit to the camps seemed outrageous and almost impossible to do. It was one request, though, and the sergeants in charge were making sure it was completed. Scan a planet for organic animal life and attempt to complete the transformation that followed its anatomy. No particular planet, just be sure it had organic forms to scan and imitate.

Sentinel had a running bet with Jazz, Ironhide and Scavenger on who would pass. Unfortunately, he'd only bet on three of his own cadets passing, those being Rad, Wasp and Moonracer. He won those bets, but lost all his credits on those the others had bet on. The rest of his squad being the ones to pass. As a matter of fact there weren't many others beside his squad that passed completely.

Every single one of the cadets Sentinel commanded scanned the planet Earth. Rad and Billy had chosen the forms of lions, Carlos a stag, Fred a buffalo, Wasp managed two forms, a jackal and the bug he was named after, Bumblebee a cat (nobody was allowed to make fun of him!), Alexis a wolf, Firestar an eagle and Moonracer a swan.

Optimus had said that these forms would be useful someday in battle and everyone agreed after witnessing the cadets use the actual forms in combat training.

Sentinel never bet with Scavenger again.

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Okay, there's my latest up-date. Again, much thanks to the people who reviewed this. I hope you keep giving me reviews, but I'd adore it if you'd give me some suggestions and some pairing prompts, I'm running on empty in that department…


	3. Trainspotting

Disclaimer: I still own nothing of any value or any credit to Transformers. Those being the property of Hasbro and those affiliated with the series.

Much thanks to any and all who have reviewed, I am most grateful. Also, the suggestions are totally awesome, so thank you all.

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**Trainspotting:**

When the scream echoed against the bridge's creaking, shaking frame, the grand train that ran over it making its own almost god-like roar to mask it, Arcee, Firestar and Moonracer had reacted accordingly. Bounding towards the site to see who was being injured or killed, their circuits were hyped for combat.

The actual sight that greeted them gave them… pause. It confused Arcee and Firestar, frightened Moonracer.

Teal eyes were scrunched tight, teeth glinting in the moonlight, frame quivering with the scream unleashed to the winds. A technique from Earth that many lonely souls had used for a sort of release that couldn't be reached through any other means. Emotional release.

No explanation was granted to the other femmes. They wouldn't understand. They may have wanted to, but it wasn't something that could be explained very easily by the post-human. And really, she didn't want to explain herself to them. Alexis could barely stand being in their presence, she sure as Hell wasn't going to try and make them understand.

**Hello- Evanescence:**

"I'm gonna regret this, I just know it…"

Dodging shots fired in his direction and dragging the limp, injured and currently in stasis medic through the battle ground that he should be wreaking havoc over, Cyclonus continued to curse himself. Of course, now, with his boss and comrades in the general vicinity aiming for Red Alert's buddies and the like, Cyclonus would have to find himself in the medic's debt and finally able to pay him back. Slag, slag, slag!

"Come on Ambulance-boy, wakey wakey! Time to get up and start yelling at me or someone else again… Please?"

Red Alert didn't move a servo, twitch an optic or anything. Not even when a laser blast hit the overhang just over their heads, dust and debris spraying over them, hitting Cyclonus with pebbles and the like. But did the blue mech wake up? Nooo. Even when the aftershocks of the blast caused the helicopter to basically topple over the medic, Red Alert didn't wake up.

And that, for some unfathomable reason, scared Cyclonus. Really, really scared him. He didn't want this Autobot to offline for good. He was too… The maniac didn't know, but if he could help it, this Autobot slagger wasn't going to die on his watch. So for the time being, he'd wait, even if he had to act as a protective shield from the deadly shots firing around the both of them. He'd wait for Red Alert to wake up. He deserved that much.

**Snare:**

Body writhing painfully against the binding 'round the scorpion's neck, Scorponok did his worst, claws slashing and pulling at this thing choking him rather painfully. A thin, sharp wire had been holding him for maybe seven minutes and he couldn't get it off, Energon was flowing almost freely from where the blasted metal cut into his metallic shell.

Scorponok was getting rather desperate and was starting to panic as the wire tightened once more, restricting even more Energon flowing through his main line. The pain was too much and he was starting to shut down. He'd _known_, he'd been told repeatedly by other scavengers and even some Mini-cons not to go in these tunnels. There'd been rumors of many of his kind going in and coming out deactivated and in pieces, Autobots of much lesser nature having set traps to ward off anything that might present a danger. Or for their own twisted pleasure, after all, not all Autobots were as optimistic or sane as Prime.

_…Help…Frenzy, someone…anyone…_

He still struggled, if not a little pathetically as his lower body started to lose feeling and he vaguely registered footsteps coming up the lining of the tunnel he'd been heading for. Probably a few cyberrats looking for an easy meal, judging from the fact that the footsteps were too light to be anyone that could be of any help to him.

"…Scorponok? Oh, slag, Swindle, get over here!"

The scavenger looked up from the mud he'd settled in, directly into the optics of a Mini-con his mind recognized. He'd chased this orange mech before… what was his name?

The bot kneeled down before the scavenger and pet his head rather soothingly, digits tracing over the wire and wheedling under it, trying to relieve some of the pressure. It helped a little and Scoponok was tremendously grateful, leaning into the touch.

"Swindle, have you found the wire's beginning yet?"

"Yeah, just let me dig this little sucker out of the wall… shouldn't take too long. Scorponok, you alive?" The partner of the infamous red Seeker asked, half of his body submerged in mud, scrabbling to pull on the bolt that the wire attached to, loosening it quickly and efficiently.

Just before the scavenger deigned to answer the speedster who just earlier he'd been chasing around with Frenzy, the wire not only stopped hurting him, it went completely slack and the orange mech pulled it right off. Oh, it was wonderful to be without that horrible, stinging pull!

"Sureshock, is it off?" Swindle called, digging back out from the muck and mire, optics covered completely with it. How could scavengers stand to do this for a living? Ugh…

**Spin the Bottle:**

"This seems very… exotic."

Billy and Carlos snickered from behind Fred as the larger mech did his best not to blush and explain the rules of this Earth game to Moonracer at the same time. It was really quite a fruitless endeavor, but he had to try. Sending one of his spikes their way, it proved a little easier.

"Not really. It's more a matter of humiliation and romance than anything else… and fun."

The blue-ish femme's head nodded, though she still looked unsure as the other post-humans and any other cadet they could round up (minus Rad and Alexis, of course) gathered in a circle. In the center of this circle was a newly created (compliments of Bumblebee) large bottle. It was painted red with what looked like two yellow balls with crudely drawn faces pressed together, a red heart hovering over the design.

Both cadets joined the circle and Fred spun the bottle, optics twirling along with everyone else as the object went clock-wise, creating a sort of singing sound and then slowly aligned itself between…

"Well, Bumblebee, Wasp…. It appears you two get first go in the storage closet."

**Hot Potato:**

"Why are you trying to sneak out at this ungodly hour?"

"Why are you even awake at this ungodly hour?"

Thrust had to keep himself from screaming and throwing a punch that had a one in twenty chance of actually hitting Demolisher as the tank had about two hundred years more battle experience than Thrust had. The flyer may be _the_ mech when it came to mental battles, but this groundpounder hated him and wouldn't hesitate to crush him like an insect given the chance. No, Thrust would keep his servos to himself.

"I just need to know you're not going anywhere suicidal. I don't want to have to wake Megatron up to go save your aft."

"Chill. I'm just going to a neutral bar," Demolisher replied, patting Thrust's shoulder like a human might a younger brother who'd caught them sneaking out their window to meet up with some smokin' tail in the middle of the night.

"To do what, exactly?" Thrust asked, crossing his arms haughtily and eyeing Demolisher's grin lessen to a small degree. Almost as if he was hiding or felt guilty about whatever he had at that neutral bar.

"You already know what mechs do when they go to bars," Demolisher said, counting off on his digits, "Get over overenergized, make fools of themselves, try to get some company for the night…"

"And which of those are you trying to accomplish?"

"Eh, option three, but I'm perfectly happy with option one if nobody interesting shows up," The tank admitted passively.

**Petty Officer:**

"Lord Megatron, if I may offer a suggestion?"

Giving a half-formed sigh the Decepticon warlord turned from the window of his base on Cybertron, away from the stars he had been considering over and directly to the tactician who came so highly recommended it was a shame that most of his plans fell through since Earth. Sometimes, in the back of his mind, and though he knew it to be ridiculous, Megatron often believed that the planet he'd spent that wretched stellar cycle upon had sucked the intelligence right out of the squid head.

"What is it, Thrust? What were you saying?"

Thrust bristled just a bit. Had Megatron even been listening to anything he'd said?

"Well, sir, we were discussing the situation on Pirah and how our troops are losing ground with the arrival of Hot Shot and those two post-organic motorcycles—"

"I know that, you fool, what was your suggestion?!"

"Well, sir, I was thinking that, on our next raid at the Autobot mines, our troops should attempt to capture those post-organics. Use them to collect information on codes for the Autobot base and such. It would certainly strengthen our efforts and they could come in handy if the situation presented itself, that's all."

Megatron's red optics dimmed, his motherboard mulling over the suggestion. It had merit, like all of Thrust's ideas, but the tank was unsure, "And who would you recommend to do this job? Those two are sneaky little fraggers and the last time we caught the one with that psychotic arm it ended rather messily. Or did you forget that it took our medic five hours to bang the dents out of your faceplate?"

If it were possible, Thrust seemed to lose some color in his face. Oh, he remembered that incident and the previous incidents before it. He'd probably never interface again thanks to that little…. _Stick to the subject._

"A-hem, I believe the mechs best suited for this job are the triple-changer Blitzwing and my fellow tactician Shockwave. They've battled those younglings before and managed to rough them up pretty good."

The horned mech nodded, he remembered those two Decepticons. Shockwave was about as loyal as they came and Blitzwing was… useful, if nothing else.

"…Very well. You are free to put everything into place. Just be certain to protect yourself, I have no wish to hear your whining again."

**M*I*S*S*I*N*G:**

Each of the post-humans had something on Earth that they thought about at least once a week on Cybertron. Remembering their hearts desire as best they could, every detail imprinted in their memories. It hurt to remember, sometime's, but that pain just made them stronger. It reminded them that a little of the human species that they were, was left in them.

Rad often thought of his parents. His friends didn't know, but every chance he got, he'd send a little message across the galaxy to their laptops and phone to let them know he was still alive. He knew his dad was strong enough to bare his absence, but his mother… It broke his heart to make her worry.

Carlos, more often than not, he recalled the desert his family used to reside in. He thought of his family, all the time, but he always thought of the desert. The sand in between his toes left him with phantom feelings in the wiring of his legs… It broke his spark that he'd never feel that again.

Alexis remembered Alaska, where she'd originally been born, the always cold weather, the abundance of wild animals and most of all the snow that fell from the sky. Her home there had been abandoned with her mother and father's separate deaths… It broke her heart that she'd never return to there.

Billy, after spending much of his child and teen-hood with Fred, missed certain dairy foods, especially that expensive coffee ice cream, with actual pieces of coffee nuts. He'd sometimes wake from recharge after dreaming about swimming in that ice cream… It broke his spark that he'd never taste it again.

Fred could remember every food he'd ever had, but he rarely cared about that anymore. They were fond memories when he was bored, but what he missed the most was home. He'd lived in that little city in Nevada all of his life, knew every building, every monument, every wonderful place there was… It broke his spark that he'd never get to go back.

**From an Acorn…:**

"Seriously, this is your gift to the sparklings you're teaching at the academy?"

"Younglings and yes, I think it will give them some inspiration to strive for the top position and blah, blah, blah."

Hot Shot didn't seem so sure as he continued to gently roll a tiny Earth nut in between his giant digits, its shell making a resounding sort of warbly sound against his metal skin. Rad had actually explained to him about these things when he was human. He'd also shown him what its adult form looked like on a mission to retrieve a Mini-con panel. Jolt had laughed for hours after seeing his partner's jaw drop at the sight.

The little acorn would, if taken care of properly, grow into a camphor tree three times taller than Hot Shot himself.

Turning back to Scavenger, the yellow fighter gave a small smile at his onetime trainer, "I think you've made an awesome choice. Hopefully, by the time they all graduate it'll be at least twice their size. Or at least, you know, give them a little beauty to look at."

**Fancies:**

A lovely set of optics watched across the organic fields of the planet Aztac as the femme's favorite mech played with the set of sparkling triplets he'd been left to take care of. Fred was so good with little ones, Firestar was sure he'd be a great creator and any femme would be lucky to have him.

"So, how long do you think it will be until they get tired?" The lithe red cadet asked, giving a little start as all three of the miniature mechs tackled the jeep, sending him to the ground. After a few moments, Fred's light-hearted laughter flew through the grass like a merry wind and the femme stopped worrying, albeit a little annoyed at his scaring her.

"Oh, it shouldn't be too long now," Fred answered, continuing to lie upon the ground as all his charges cuddled atop his chest plates, giving little clicking twitters to each other. The planet's sun warming and giving them a sense of security.

**Everything Lost…:**

"Something is ending, or something is beginning… I just can't tell."

Sparkplug sipped from his Energon cube and did his best to understand what the frag High Wire was babbling about, looking so depressed as to be dying, head pressed to the bar counter and his own Energon all gone. Sureshock would be mad if he went home to Rad like that and Sparkplug knew something. The leader-con was forgetting why he volunteered for this.

"You want to say something normal for this, like, maybe someone here looks smokin' or why life is so cruel?"

"Life_ is_ so cruel!" High Wire yelled, head lifting and fist slamming onto the counter, knocking over his empty cube, "Rad's going to start interfacing with that- that- that _Arcee_ and forget all about me!"

It was when the BMX started crying and clinging to his shoulder that Sparkplug understood everything, "I see, you're having inferiority panic attacks."

"Every action has an equal, but opposite reaction," Grindor chimed in from the other side of the bar, doing his best to flirt with a semi-intoxicated Spiral.

**Sleepwalk:**

"Cadet, you better have one excellent explanation as to why I'm not marching over there, splashing her with a bucket of freezing cold water and prying her off the fence."

Despite the look on Sentinel's face that promised imminent wrath and painful punishment, Wasp managed to come up with an appropriate response, "She might try and kill you."

Some of the wrath was wiped off the sergeant's face, which was a good sign, but some was left at the edges, which was somewhere between a bad sign and the unknown, "So, what did her file say to do in a situation such as this?" Sentinel asked, pointing up at the fence that bordered the whole of the training camp, at the moment holding an Earth born femme that had started bounding from one respective post to another, optics showing the dimmest light imaginable and movements of her body heavy.

Wasp rubbed the back of his helm, ignoring Bumblebee beside him gawking as Alexis did a flip in mid air, landing perfectly once more, even if the post did rattle a little, "Well, according to Red Alert's research on her planet, she's stuck somewhere between the two deeper points of sleep and even though she's still technically in recharge, her body and not her mind is in control—"

"Get to the point!"

"Right, sorry! The file basically said to not try and awaken her, make sure she doesn't do anything too detrimental to her health and she'll just go back to her berth when her body starts to wake up."

Sentinel raised an optic ridge, observing the flyer who constantly gave him grief do two handsprings and three twists mid-air before landing again. Optimus would destroy him if anything happened to her (as would a few Decepticons, he had the feeling) but these two cadets seemed to have everything under control…

"I'll be in recharge in my quarters. Come and get me if she blows herself or anything else up."

**Help, Police, Drunkard:**

"Aren't you going to help?"

"I held his head when he purged his tanks on the balcony."

Hot Shot didn't roll his optics, considering Red Alert had been a good sport about this so far, even being good enough to help walk their drunk, pitiful sniper home. Neither of them should have felt sorry for Blurr, but for now he was a pitiful wreck and that miniature sadist in Hot Shot told him to enjoy this while he could. Because, in the morning, Blurr would suffer much worse. Not only would he have a raging hang-over, he'd have to face Sideswipe and own up to interfacing with the sensitive hacker's brother.

Really, was there any worse punishment they could inflict upon the mech?

Even if, at the moment, Blurr was happily spinning on a pole singing some human song Hot Shot could vaguely remember Jazz down-loading into his favorite music collection last week, both the medic and the fighter knew that come morning, the sniper would never be happy again.

**Water Lillies:**

The stares and open mouthed looks Alexis was getting from the two other femmes in her unit were starting to annoy her to the Pit. What was so hard to understand? Why were these ladies finding it so hard to pull themselves from the past and looked at the future a little differently?

She knew opening up would be a mistake.

"What do you mean you don't want to get bonded someday?" Moonracer asked, continuing her transform-ups they were supposed to do because Sentinel had caught Billy in recharge during monitor duty, thus punishing the whole unit with two-hundred transform-ups. The mechs were about a third of the way done, while the femmes were more than half thanks to this stupid thing Alexis had blurted out, all going faster so the mechs wouldn't hear them.

"I mean exactly what I said. I just think it's kind of pointless."

"It's not pointless," Firestar chimed in, ignoring the slight pain in her rivets and rotors in her peds and torso, "It is necessary. You find a mech you're supposed to be with for eternity, have a couple sparklings and be happy."

"In that exact order? I don't think so. Besides, it seems that the moment a femme gets hitched, they get it up the spout or lose hubby in a battle. I'm not gonna set myself up for that, thank you."

"But, we have to have sparklings," The small blue-ish femme said, vocal volume going down to a near whisper as Sentinel stalked passed, listening to his comm. about something involving the simulated combat field being set off.

Alexis scoffed from inside her cockpit just before changing to her humanoid form and back again, "No, you and all the other femmes don't _have_ to have sparklings, you're just expected to because the whole slagging lot of you are all weak and dainty and to be protected. I've seen a few mechs who carry like fragging seahorses, I know if you really wanted you could get someone else to do it. And anyway, I couldn't have a sparkling even if I did get bonded."

Both the lithe red femme and the blue meek femme paused for a nanosec at this statement. Femmes on Cybertron were always fertile, it was in their basic programming and sometimes overrode everything else, even if their Sparkmate wanted to carry their young, it was just how femmes were. Apparently they had just fished another fact from this slightly aggressive post-human without even trying. They then continued their transformations before Sentinel marched back again, pink goo dripping from his shoulder strut.

"You can't have sparklings?" Firestar asked hesitantly, making a note never to ask again as Alexis seemed to bristle, "No. My last check up from First Aid revealed I offer an extremely inhospitable and dangerous environment for anything to reside in for more than a month. Somewhere between infertility and spontaneous miscarriage."

It may have been a mistake to share such a private piece of information, seeing as the femmes had sixteen transform-ups to go, and Moonracer had a low thresh-hold for other people's pain.

"You poor thing!" The Towers femme practically cried, pouncing on the flyer and clutching her in what Fred had identified as a bear hug, completely ignoring Alexis' cries of, "Get off, get off, get off!"

**Kiss Me- American Idol:**

"You, you, you, you…."

"Kissed you. Yes."

Smokescreen gave a sort of sputter, Scavenger continuing to trace over his face plates almost lovingly with one purple digit. Since when did the yellow and black bulldozer give a damn about someone other than himself and start having actual emotions besides battle happiness and tiredness? Since when was he interested in the orange crane? What the Pit was going on?!

Smokescreen leaned in a little, optics narrowing, "Are you overenergized?"

"Haven't had a drink in three days," And he still continued tracing over the confused 'Bot, enjoying how he was shivering and starting to lean into it, "I wanted to make sure my decision was clear when I kissed you."

…Smokescreen could live with that.

**Cut, Clean, Suture:**

Servos covered in thick gauze and bandages, Rad waited patiently for the inevitable lecture as Red Alert began setting the shattered bones in the post-human's left leg. A nice little shot from a Decepticon sniper had put him out of commission for an estimated two weeks and the sports mech wasn't happy. He just healed his hands a month ago, why did that 'Con get so lucky? Now he'd be stuck as a desk jockey _again_.

"I know this is hard Rad," Ah, here came the lecture, "But, you really should start wearing those protective casts. They hurt the first couple weeks, but in the long run—"

"They protect me. I know, I _know_." Rad finished, head bowed dejectedly. He'd heard this all before, and yes, it would be smarter to save him some pain and suffering, but… He liked his hands to actually feel heat, chill and the wind passing by. Those casts made him completely numb. But, he'd told Red Alert this all before, a repeat wouldn't really help him and besides, the medic, he was sure, only felt obligated to lecture him when Ratchet was in the next room. Show he was responsible enough to inform the patient about all their options and blah, blah, blah.

**Fight or Flight:**

Bright but very suspicion filled optics stared up at the heavy set Decepticon, the grey sparkling the optics belonged to, hovering just near it's siblings, chirruping. Three days ago, the sparklings had been brought into this place by that strange warm femme, who gave them to those three funny flyers, who brought them here. The other sparklings in this place were much bigger than the three of them and seemed to delight in picking fights with them, so this big mech had brought them into his chambers and set them in his nice warm berth in a nest of soft linens he'd gotten from a barter station nearby.

The sparkling continued to stare up at the mech, head tilting as the tank sat on a chair just behind him, looking… the sparkling didn't know. Like their femme creator looked before she hid herself and them from a lot of scary, noisy, angry mechs.

"Hmm, I wonder when Starscream's gonna find your mech creator, you must be missing him, huh?"

The sparkling gave a twitter causing the tank to smirk just a bit at it, "I hope they get back soon. They didn't even leave me your names, if you even have one. For all I know, Alexis probably found you just after you were born, eh?"

That name… was that the warm femme who found them? Those three flyers kept saying that name, so it must be. The sparkling made a sort of static laced beep, raising its arms in the intergalactic request of 'pick me up'?

The green optic mech sighed, something he had been unfortunate to pick up from Earth and obliged the little one before it started making a fuss and woke its siblings. His big servos carefully lifted the chatty sparkling and turned it so the little one was pressed against his chassis, the sounds from his spark comforting to one so young, "Why don't you ever sleep with the others anyway? I know it's scary here, and around that piston rod Shockwave, who shouldn't be within three peds of any sparkling, but you'll get used to it."

Little optics flared a bit, a procession of chirps and twitters following the action, along with the sparkling turning from the big mech, to its siblings and back again, tiny chassis puffing out noticeably. An explanation that the tank really couldn't translate but understood in meaning.

Their current guardian's left optic ridge rose humorously, "You protect them? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

_Chirrup, twitter twitter, beep!_

A pleasant, hardy laughter flooded from the big mech's vocal processors, careful to hold onto the sparkling who seemed indignant by the action. Oh, this was just too precious.

His laughter was cut short as his comm. link beeped and he answered instantly, knee joint bouncing a little to occupy the sparkling as he did so, "Demolisher here."

"WHERE ARE THE SPARKLINGS I LEFT IN THE NURSERY?!"

Both the mech and the sparkling winced at the scratchy voice that echoed through Demolisher's comm. Good old Screamer, who actually cared about sparklings apparently, sounded as though he was having a full systems break down on the other end of the line. Demolisher actually had to take a moment to make sure he hadn't blown one of his audio receivers before answering.

"Calm down, Starscream. They're all in my room with me. One of them is still awake if you'd like to see them."

"… I'll be there shortly."

Both mechs cut the connection and Demolisher counted down from ten in his head, hearing the tell-tale sound of turbo thrusters as Starscream didn't seem patient enough to walk from the nursery around the corner to the tank's room. Perhaps he had found these little ones' parent?

Demolisher's door then opened, revealing a dark faced seeker whom had become the tank's somewhat friend over the course of a stellar cycle. Albeit, slowly and with the occasional reoccurrence of malice, but still a friend, "Hello again, Starscream. You're looking… kinda upset. No luck on the search?"

"Actually…" Starscream hesitated, moving to greet the sparkling that was still awake and gently lifting it from Demolisher's lap, "He's in the throne room with Megatron as we speak. He's very upset that his sparkmate is dead and is anxious for his sparklings."

=-==-==-=-=-=-==--=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=---=-==-=-=-=

Okay, this chapter was a little shorter than the others and I realize I've mostly been focusing on Demolisher and Alexis, but that's because they're my favorite characters and easy to work with. Any suggestions are loved and cherished and considered over.


	4. Baby Come Back

Disclaimer: I don't own anything even vaguely related to Transformers. Except those DVDs I got on sale…

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, especially MissCHSparkles, I've been nosing around and have discovered even more inspiration from your works, and am eternally grateful for it. All the rest, I'm loving you too.

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**We Are Women, Hear Us…:**

"Elita, please, go to recharge. You're looking like the walking offlined and I don't think Theta will be able to look at you without crying for a while." Chromia did not beg. It wasn't in her nature and she wasn't going to do it now. This was simply a friendly piece of advice, with her favorite gun being polished as a prop.

Elita, however, was not taking the hint. She just continued to pace through the control room like a feral Terracon who'd had its territory ransacked. She looked worse, when she actually faced Chromia. The blue femme wondered absently how Optimus dealt with this behavior.

"I can't. Not until I figure out why those young, talented femmes rejected my very sought after offer of being in our squad, in favor of staying with Sentinel-_Slagging_-Prime."

_Here we go again…_

"I mean, I understand that Sentinel might have a spark in that roomy chassis and maybe that's why they stayed, but COME ON! He's basically a walking interface cable and they picked_ him_… Maybe, I should call them up now? I know it's late, but when I asked them before, they were still sedated."

"The Earthling _wasn't_, and if I remember correctly, your offer was directed primarily at her," Chromia spoke, desperation to keep her friend away from the intercom as long as possible obviously visible in her demeanor.

"Yeah, but, I'm starting to think she hates me… Do you think she hates me?"

Great, now the rage had been replaced by a self-confidence problem that could only be fixed with encouragement. Another thing that Chromia sucked at, ugh…

"Elita, I think you're forgetting that the femme you're so eager to have join us, seems to find delight in hating everyone. It's not you, it's her."

The leader of all Autobot femmes still didn't look so sure.

**Superstition:**

"This isn't funny Billy!"

Still looking rather pleased with himself, the pumpkin mech laid smugly against the chair he occupied, watching his dearest and nearest jeep try and work around all the little bringers of supposed bad luck Billy had set up around the room. Open umbrellas hung on strings, little stuffed black cats were splayed here and there, salt piles were placed everywhere and the Honda motorcycle had found an impressive looking ladder right in the center of the door.

Fred, though he never cared to admit, was always very careful when it came to bad omens and signs, courtesy of his parents, and looked like he wanted to strangle Billy once he maneuvered his way around the giant ladder that, guess what, had thirteen steps!

**Hello, Kitty:**

Ravage couldn't believe what he was seeing. He'd been stationed on this planet for less than a week and he'd discovered a fairly attractive Cyberfeline like he was! True, this one was a little on the short side and its paintjob was probably useless when it came to stealth, but it was gorgeous.

Still staying very low to the ground, body completely shrouded by shadow, the Decepticat made his way to the rock this creature sunbathed on. He still wasn't sure if it was awake, but he didn't care, he wanted to talk to it. Perhaps it was single?

Pausing just long enough to check that he wouldn't be interrupted, Ravage stuck his paw out and tapped the yellow one on the head.

Startled, a pair of baby blue optics onlined and looked directly into the big metal panther's optics. Some of its yellow metal shifted uncomfortably, ready obviously, in case of an attack. Ravage was gonna either pummel the smaller feline or start courting him immediately, "Hello, little one."

Alright, now the yellow one looked really freaked out. What was with the alluring tone of voice?

"Hi, Ravage… Are you on something? You're acting really weird," The little one greeted, backing up the rock and away from the other rather quickly.

A sudden look of confusion and nausea swept over the darker feline's face. He knew that voice, that voice had caused him severe annoyance many, many times. It just didn't fit this picture.

"Do I know you?" Ravage growled, padding up and before the feline that was obviously a mech and was looking far too smug once the words left the panther's mouth.

The yellow one looked like he was soon to respond, mouth open and dentals showing, but was interrupted by an attractive voice just over the ridge from the rock both Cybercats occupied. A voice succeeded by two quick barks. Those barks sent Ravage on edge. He hated Cyberdogs almost as much as that red Mini-con forever following Starscream around.

"Bumblebee? You here?"

Disgust directed at himself from within, spread through him like a fatal acid, Ravage's optics widened in abject and absolute horror. Why, Primus, why? Out of all the evil, malevolent tricks the powers that be could have pulled on the loyal Decepticon, why did it have to be this?!

Turning back at the yellow one, Ravage was disappointed and quite surprised to see Bumblebee reverted back to his true form, grinning down at him with gleaming optics. How could Ravage have thought those blue orbs were even remotely attractive?

"Bee, what are you doing all the way out here? Sentinel has been looking all over for you,"

"Sorry about that Wasp. I was kinda… indisposed."

Body still facing Bumblebee and radiating obvious disdain and contempt, Ravage's head turned just enough to catch sight of a medium sized Cyberjackal heading down towards them, paintjob mostly a sort of green, contrasting with the landscape of red rocks and wispy white organic flora un-named by those in control of the planet. Oh, slag, he was bigger than Ravage… and those dentals looked lethal…

**40 Days and Nights:**

Walls were closing in on him, the lights were too bright and Hot Shot was wondering what was so wrong with Decepticons anyway. Wheeljack was engaged… The yellow Autobot with the already heavy conscience filled with grief and more guilt than any mech his age should ever hold was feeling rather empty at the moment. Like he was caught in the tide, being pulled out to sea to be condemned for all eternity to rust at the bottom of Earth's oceans in emotional agony.

Wheeljack was engaged… Maybe if Hot Shot had begged forgiveness a little harder, forged on without pause, he'd get another chance?...No, the gold and black mech had made up his mind, he wouldn't change it based on the pleadings of the Autobot who'd left him in that fire so long ago.

Wheeljack was engaged… Hot Shot didn't even know who the lucky femme was. Rumors were circling that she was formerly a Towers femme, very pretty, but with very little wit. How could Wheeljack want that? How could he even tolerate someone like that? Unless he was doing it out of some form of Decepticon duty, in which case, Hot Shot couldn't stop him even if he crashed the wedding, guns a blazin' at the last second. Nah, his old friend would probably still bond with the little glitch to spite him.

Completely still atop his berth, night covering Cybertron in darkness, save for the moon and stars, Hot Shot felt a little something in him snap like a broken circuit.

The yellow bot gave a short, empty bark of laughter, one arm covering his face as saline formed in his optics, "Wheeljack's engaged…"

**Bath House:**

Truthfully, Wasp wasn't sure if it was polite to stare or not. For the first time ever, Sentinel had brought his cadets on his yearly retreat to the most famous Autobot resort and here the mechs were, midsection deep in just the right temperature of water… without their armor. The sign out front said no armor, which literally meant they had to shed their coverings and bathe in the company of their _sergeant_ and _each other_ with just a layer of bubbles covering them.

Truth be told, the green mech found it very relaxing, but couldn't stop looking over at Bumblebee and every single one of the post humans. They were all just so… different, and weird. He'd been caught staring at Rad and those weird purple lines that marred a lot of his arms and chest. Actually, all the Earth mechs had those lines somewhere. Carlos had one that looked like an explosion below his right shoulder strut, looked like it had really hurt. Billy had two jagged pinkish lines running up his spinal column and Fred had one that looked suspiciously like the nozzle of a laser gun, circular and wide.

Bumblebee, and Wasp was somehow grateful for this, occasionally looked over to their comrades as well, averting his optics the moment one of the others almost caught the look on his faceplates. It wasn't pity that went out to the Earth cadets, more like silent reverence and awe at how much their new friends had gone through.

"Cadet Wasp, did you hear a word I've been saying?!"

Tripping on a loose stone under his left ped, Wasp found himself splashing faceplate first in to the warm water, subsequently dousing the others, including his fairly irritated sergeant.

Head resurfacing, the green mech looked over at Sentinel nervously, finding it difficult not to giggle at the handful of bubbles that had lodged onto his head, making him look like Mr. Clean on vacation.

"I'm sorry sir. I think there might have had water in my audios. You were saying?"

**Tadpole:**

"Where is she? She was supposed to fly right over that waterfall an hour ago," Demolisher grumbled from his position, crouched in the reeds in a rather pathetic attempt to blend into his surroundings, "Think she got caught?"

From above, circling between and through light green clouds that made the planet a rather pleasant sight, Thrust snorted, "If she was, we would have heard it over our comm. links. Do you think the honored "guards" would stay silent if they got their servos on an Autobot femme?"

"…No." The yellow tank admitted, sinking lower on his treads.

Before he could go back to moping, however, Thrust chose that moment to brighten his day in the last possible way he could have thought up, "Demolisher, you've got an energy signature heading your way at twelve o'clock low!"

That couldn't possibly be right. The only thing in front of Demolisher was the river and waterfall--

Before his optics, and before he could move out of the way, the river rose up before him in what could only be the biggest splash ever, and sprayed his entire body, every plate of armor and visible joint in water. Some little pieces of vegetation stuck to his face and his green optics rolled as he heard Thrust cackle in amusement at his expense. Out of the water, along with another wave of the accursed wetness, came Alexis in jet mode, three little figures waving from inside her cockpit as she docked on the shore, mud sticking to her underside. Ha! Demolisher wasn't the only one leaving there with a little something extra.

"You're late." The tank commented off-handedly, shaking himself of the extra droplets.

"Yes," Thrust added, coming in for a landing just near enough to the femme that she wouldn't be able to kick him when she transformed, "We had thought you'd forgotten all about us."

Alexis stayed silent in favor of her cockpit opening to let out the three restless Mini-cons who'd been stuck inside her for the past hour having to endure dodging Decepticon look-outs and her deep rolls underwater. Poor things were probably a little woozy and dented by now.

Blackout was the first to emerge and bounded excitedly over to Demolisher, beeping things at a million miles an hour. The tank couldn't understand anything other than that his partner missed him and was worried for his Bulk's safety. He then immediately leapt onto the tank's leg and just hugged him like he never wanted to let go.

Inferno followed soon after, albeit very slowly, swaying to-and-fro, his motherboard a little frazzled from the journey under the waves. Thrust picked him up in order to steady him, one dark digit rubbing the Mini-con's back like he actually cared. And he did care, just in installments.

Sureshock was the last to emerge, Alexis quickly transforming the moment the orange scooter touched ground, looking fairly pleased at finally getting off base and succeeding in this little escapade. Sureshock looked a little pleased as well, but for a whole other reason.

"Your Mini-cons were really worried about you two," said Alexis, allowing Sureshock to hop on her servo and scurry up to her shoulder strut, "What happened that you would leave them mid-battle?"

"Megatron ordered a retreat," Thrust answered, Inferno finally seeming to register he was on solid ground again and sort of clinging to the stealth jet, "We tried to go back, but these two were already unreachable by comm. link."

"We went back later," Demolisher added, "But these two were gone. Where did you find them?"

"Hiding inside one of our crashed medical ships, under a pile of medical equipment."

"Rather clever of them," The tactician complimented, pink optics flashing in approval of his Mini-con. Inferno would have blushed if he could.

**Tell Me Sweet Little Lies**:

Perhaps Optimus should have been a little nicer to Elita? He'd missed her since his mission to Earth and wanted very much to go back to the way things were, but as it turned out things were not that simple. Their personalities had changed, along with their opinions of each other. Their connection had dulled and was flickering, he could see it in her optics. He was sure she could see it in his as well.

That actually seemed worse than what he was currently doing.

"I suppose I should be thanking you about now, eh, Prime?"

"You could, but it's not really necessary."

At the very back of the cave Optimus had discovered an hour ago, sheltered from the acid rain and cold winds blowing outside, Megatron looked disbelievingly across the fire keeping them warm, at his arch nemesis. Say what now? He'd heard and seen Optimus be humble before, say a billion times, but never with a depressed, pathetic as Pit sound in his voice.

"You're seeming rather miserable these days, did I blow up anyone close to you lately?" The Decepticon warlord asked curiously, fiddling with the wires sparking at his right side to make him look like he wasn't all that interested in finding anything out about Prime's current moody attitude.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you did, but so far nobody I can think of," Optimus answered, poking a stick farther into the flames, burning himself and yet not feeling it. That really kind of freaked Megatron out.

"Well then," Here, Megatron threw on the fake caring voice, followed at break-neck speeds by anger covering his slight worry for the one and only Autobot he'd ever been remotely friendly towards, if only for a millisecond, "What's your slagging problem? You've been acting like this for weeks, even during battle and it's become extraordinarily bothersome. As your adopted younglings say, what's the deal?"

Optimus just kind of looked at him in utter shock for a few moments, only pulled out of his stunned, rigid pose by his pain receptors telling him the stick he was holding had reached his servo and the fire was making his metal skin uncomfortably warm. He then dropped the stick and flapped his crispy servo back and forth for a moment, thus causing Megatron to give a little chuckle.

Holding his servo to his chassis Optimus said the only thing he could think of at the moment, "I…I, um, am… sorry?" Like he said, the only thing he could think of.

Megatron slapped his palm to his face, chin balancing on it as he looked back up in frustration at the now injured Autobot commander, "I don't care if you're sorry. You're sorry about everything. It's your most functioning program. I want to know why you're acting like your bondmate has left you or something."

The mostly blue semi seemed to cringe at that comment and Megatron realized he'd hit the mark dead on and had somehow beaten it into the ground with just that one sentence. Suddenly the tank really didn't want to be in that cave anymore. Perhaps he could survive the acid rain if he ran the six hundred miles back to his current base camp?

_Oh, Primus, don't start crying. Please don't start—Frag._

No longer looking at Megatron, Optimus actually brought his knees up to his chest and planted his face atop them. His arms then crossed over whatever was seen of his optics and a procession of muted sobs left his vocal processors. Primus, how pathetic was he right now, breaking down in front of his worst enemy like a youngling? If there was any justice he'd have been blown up before he'd ever thought this would happen.

Megatron didn't want to move. Inside he was actually having a little—oh, slag it—a big panic attack. What did he do? Why was Prime like this? Why did he have to open his trenchant mouth?!

**Power:**

"I don't suppose there's any advice you could give me for these cadets Optimus seems so fond of?"

Scavenger didn't look back over at Sentinel. He continued in his rather active workout, legs continually thrusting and jabbing through the air rather quickly, the dummy he was using, not shaped like a Decepticon like all the others, but rather like certain Autobots that got on his nerves. Sentinel actually flinched when he noticed the one Scavenger was laying into looked an awful lot like Mirage of the Towers.

The yellow and black bulldozer didn't look over to Sentinel, but did speak, "What advice would you like me to give? Be precise, I haven't got all day."

Sentinel would beg to differ, optics roving over the training room that had seen better days since the fighter had arrived, chunks of the walls were missing, littering the floor with rubble and two of the lights above their heads were flickering on and off every few minutes. Primus help whatever cleaning crew came in every so often.

"Well, sir," Sentinel said as respectfully as he was able, "They're all very… different from my previous and current recruits and I've found them holding back their abilities more often than not. Is there any way to curb that behavior?"

"Not really, no."

The sergeant could practically hear a circuit in his cranium come loose at that. Was every 'Bot that came in contact with those insubordinate crank-shafts insane? He'd have thought a veteran such as Scavenger would at least give him something. Drop him a fragging line, a hint, ANYTHING!

Just as he was to take his leave, the blue sergeant stilled as Scavenger spoke again, "However, I might make a suggestion that could keep them from driving _you_ crazy, if you'd like."

"I would, like, yes! Er, sir."

For a simple moment Scavenger stopped beating the practice dummy and turned to Sentinel, looking rather amused at the mech he'd always considered such a stiff, "Try actually listening to them, get to understand them and you'll see they're actually very friendly. A sort of, you scratch their backs they'll scratch yours, type of deal."

"And this actually works?"

"Oh, we never had to try that, they actually like _us_. It could work for you, though. Give it a month or so."

_…If I'm not dead by that time_, Sentinel thought, ignored once more as Scavenger went back to the dummy.

**What's in a Name?:**

It struck any Cybertronian that met the Earthian younglings as odd that they didn't get Christened with new names. Cybertronians, even small, useless ones had names that made them imposing or seem harmless. Graceful but unpolished, simple but meant something. Earth names didn't really translate to anything they readily understood. And thus, some of the other cadets and friends, or even enemies of the post-humans began giving them little nicknames. Some they kept to themselves, others shared their ideas with the ex-humans, thereby irritating them or making them a little happier.

Somehow, Billy was the first to get a nickname, from Sentinel as odd as that sounded. It actually started off as an insult that caught onto everyone else. Black Lie, on account of him bending rules so much as to border on the most outrageous of lies. The sergeant was also trying to mock the black lines on the post-human. Oh, how that backfired…

Fred, like everything else he did on Earth, immediately followed Billy after that. A suggestion made by Jetfire of all mechs, for the dark jeep to mull over. Nightrider, considering all the countless trips he made to the nurseries when the sparklings had bad dreams and wouldn't quiet down for their berth-mates. Fred liked it, truly, but had trouble remembering it when others actually called after him with it.

Alexis had two names vying for her christening, from the mechs and the femmes. Elita had suggested the name Cellophane in consideration to Alexis' usually clear opinions. The post-human thought the other was delusional and rejected immediately. Then, Bumblebee suggested Kryptonite after hearing about a 'Superman' from Carlos and Billy. It paid homage to her coloring and her personality. But, no, the second she heard _that_ she was less than happy. Her birth name was hers to keep and nobody would change her mind.

Carlos heard his new title leave everyone's vocal processors, but it seemed a little rude and often depressed him. Basketcase? And all because of his stupid arm! He knew that the others didn't mean anything by it (bar Sentinel) but he felt he really didn't need a reminder of how screwed up he'd been since his little accident with Cyclonus and the constant, not so little accidents on the firing range and whatever weapons room he didn't know even existed and wound up running through before his arm decided to try out a new toy. No, like Alexis, his human name suited him just fine.

Rad had two names that made him feel more humble than he actually was, but nobody could seem to decide which suited him best. Though both outlandish and embarrassing, many felt one of them was perfect for the teen. Half the mechs agreed on what Jazz had come up with. Red Light, on account of how many 'Bots thought the blue sports car was highly pleasing to the optics and must be a real ladies mech (this causing Rad to blush red hot every time). Hot Shot, on the other side, had suggested Rockstar. A lucky few of the Cybertronians knew that this name meant something relating to popular music, not the literal meaning. However, it seemed Arcee had decided for him that his Earth name fit him perfectly, since it was already very Cybertronian in its shortness and meaning. The teen had never been more grateful to a femme.

**Heels, They Will Kill You:**

"Excuse me?"

Moonracer, though extremely daunted and afraid of the green femme before her, continued holding up the welding tool she'd borrowed from the med-bay and the pair of red, heeled peds for femmes she'd found on sale in Iacon. She wasn't backing down now, now that she'd mustered up the courage to try being nice to Alexis after the incident with Sentinel and simulated combat a week ago.

"I found these and thought they'd be perfect for you! See, the red matches up perfectly with the green on your upper paintjob!"

Alexis eyed the heeled peds warily, as though any moment they'd animate and attach to her ankles themselves. It wasn't going to happen, but her teal optics still retained suspicion, "Moonracer, why would I need those? I have perfectly functioning peds, if you hadn't noticed."

"Well, yeah, but," And here the Towers femme paused politely, looking down at Alexis' peds that looked so flat as to be indecent, "A femme should have heeled peds. Yours look kind of, what's the word…"

"Masculine?" Alexis asked, optic ridge raising at the femme who in years was older but in wisdom, not so much, "Is there something wrong with my peds being like this, Moonracer? Do I offend you in some way?"

"No! No, no, no! I just thought that since you're new to Cybertron you'd, uh, like to, um, assimilate. Yeah, that's all!" And here the ditzy femme dropped both peds and the welding torch, a nice **clang **reverberating through the room that was the femmes' quarters on base.

As Moonracer bent down to pick up the objects, Alexis (for once) took pity on the new arrival and bent to pick up the welding torch, speaking almost kindly, "Moonie, I know you mean well, but on Earth, not all females are required to or even like, having heels."

"But… why? My femme creator said heels are part of what makes us ladies."

Alexis scoffed at that, "Moonracer, as nice as these are, I can't wear them. I'd trip all over myself, and everyone else. Also, heels give me back problems that quickly turn into migraines. And before you ask why, I'll have to finish this with saying I don't know entirely why, that's just how it is with humans… Also, they hurt. A lot."

Moonracer sighed, her shoulder struts slouching along with the rest of her. Primus, why was everything she tried to do for the post-humans destined to fail? And after she'd spent those credits on the peds…

The post-human, feeling just the slightest tweaks of guilt, pulled the peds lightly from Moonracer's servos, giving them a thoughtful look-over, "Well, if nothing else, you can give these to Firestar, because if I remember correctly, one of her peds got crushed in training yesterday and it's still all dented and missing paint."

A grin, with the exact opposite effect of the Grinch planning to steal from Whoville, spread across a large portion of Moonracer's face, a little bit of saline forming in her optics to make her look so sickeningly sweet as to make Sentinel gag if he'd walked in at that moment. This was followed by the slightly shorter femme giving Alexis a tight, slightly painful hug. If Alexis still had lungs, they probably would have popped at the moment.

"Oh, thank you Alexis! I'll go find her right now!"

And that's exactly what she did, grabbing all of her items haphazardly and bolted off and out the door, heading for the monitor room where Firestar had been forced to take the shift of Wasp, seeing as he was in the med-bay, recovering from Fred accidentally bowling over him earlier.

"Well, that's my good deed for the day." Alexis grumbled, some of the struts in her back popping as she got up due to the pressure Moonracer had administered.

**Lala- Ashley Simpson:**

Rad was pretty sure that he still had a lot of his human hormones still coursing through his systems, never mind what Ratchet and Red Alert said. The blue teen was certain that he at least had adrenaline, and maybe a few that he couldn't pronounce that affected his view and mood whenever a femme walked in the room. At the moment, adrenaline was racing through him, all because Arcee was asking questions better left alone about his planet.

"Arcee, this is really inappropriate…"

"Oh, puh-lease! Your other friends in Sentinel's unit are happy to divulge this sort of info and I'm an intel. 'Bot who thrives on this kind of thing, so spill."

Rad tapped the keyboard in front of his absently, hoping that the strong-willed femme in Elita's unit would take his silence as a sign to drop this. Why did he have to work monitor duty with her exactly? Oh, that's right, because Ironhide and Chromia are sadists!

The femme wasn't taking the hints, though. She just continued to sit in her chair looking expectant, her face smiling. Inwardly, the sports car wondered if she knew he was as uncomfortable as he could ever be. Girls back home didn't do this, they just called boys idiots and walked out, but Arcee? No! Now he'd probably offline from embarrassment.

Sighing more out of habit than necessity, Rad turned back to the femme and gave a silent prayer that she didn't speak of this to anyone, especially Elita, because nice as the chief femme was, she had a mouth on her that would shame an auctioneer at the county fair. This could make its way to Optimus and shame Rad forever, or worse, make femmes look at him funnier than they already did. It would be in his best interests to be vague right now.

"Alright, I'll make you a deal. For every question you ask and I answer, you have to answer any questions I dish out for you."

The speed of her answer gave him zero degrees of comfort, "Deal."

_Offlined from Embarrassing Questions Administered by an Over-curious Femme… Wonder if they'll use that in my eulogy?_

"Fine, ask away."

Arcee gave a squeal that Rad generally believed only a cheerleader should be able to use and pulled a datapad out from the ten other datapads she'd been looking over for the past hour, this one covered in scratches and oil smears. Apparently she'd brought her own. She _knew_ he was going to make a deal. The sneaky little…

"First question: When did you first interface after your transformation from organic to Cybertronian?"

If he didn't know better, he could have sworn that his audio receptors popped.

"………………I….haven't….yet….."

"What was that?"

"I haven't yet, damnit!!"

"Okay, okay! Yeesh," Arcee said, making a little note on her datapad about his temper and putting a check in one corner so he couldn't cheat when he asked his questions, "Second, if you had to, which Decepticon would you try to coax over to our side?"

Rad tilted his head a little to the left in contemplation. How do you answer something like that? None of the Decepticons seemed to like him, and Starscream had already come over to their side when Megatron almost beat him to death when the Seeker's relationship with Jetfire was revealed (albeit accidentally) by Skywarp, the moron. After the red Seeker, who was really left to bring over successfully?

"Well, maybe Wheeljack, if he ever stops being so angry and bitter at Hot Shot."

"Alright. Now, would you like to ask one of your two, or shall I keep going?"

"Hmm," At this, Rad leaned toward the femme by a few inches, his own devilish little smirk forming and giving Arcee the feeling she was going to regret agreeing to the deal. Tremendously.

**Crooked Borders:**

If High Wire had ever wanted to find himself in this position after his long hibernation he would have gone over to the Decepticons once Rad woke him up. And yet, for all of his success, here he was again, in the same situation he was a million years ago. At gun point by a Bulk who was too full of himself to see just how stupid he was.

"Cool it, Sentinel," High Wire beeped, poking the gun still aimed at him like a five year old human who was told not to touch something when he knew he'd get spanked for it, but did it anyway, "I'm just here to see Rad. He is on base I hope?"

The great blue colossus of a mech moved the weapon from the destructive range of the Mini-con and just sort of scoffed as he put the weapon back against the wall on the wrack with all the other weapons his unit wasn't allowed to touch. It was well known by most of High Wire's friends and collegues that Sentinel wasn't much of a fan of the Mini-cons, having the same view of them as Blurr when the sniper had first arrived on Earth. Except, while Blurr had changed, Sentinel had clung to the old ways. To him, the Mini-cons were still only tools who happened to have personalities.

"Your master's in the training room. Make sure you don't get stepped on," And with that, the sergeant took his leave without another word, not noticing and probably not understanding the motion of the BMX raising his right arm, bringing the left one over it with some force and the right arm drawing back to show his servo 'flipping the bird.'

When High Wire was sure the blue mech was gone, the BMX shook his helm and made his way for Rad, muttering to himself, "Sparkplug is right, he is a worthless crankshaft."

**Paternal Familial:**

"Stormtrooper! Acidstreak! Greyshift!"

Rather pretentious names, but Starscream certainly wasn't going to say anything about it to the distraught mech and neither was Demolisher. Both simply stood rigid as the mech creator of the three sparklings they'd been caring for rushed right passed Megatron and Thrust, optics shining in absolute joy at the sight of his little ones all together, in one piece.

The only sparkling that was fully out of recharge started chirping excitedly, reaching his stubby little arms over Starscream's much broader arms for the mech he obviously missed. This request was immediately fulfilled, the father mech lightly but quickly plucking his little one from Starscream and bringing him up to his chestplates, moving for the now semi-awake ones held by Demolisher, both twittering when they finally noted their creator was there! All three of them snuggled just above the mech's spark, creating a rather adorable seen.

The display would have been altogether too sweet if Starscream didn't know the parental mech from his war academy days. A rather large jet that looked much more like an Autobot than a Decepticon, blue optics and all. If the red Seeker remembered correctly, his name was Skyfire and was commander of a small group of trainees in the academy. And a single 'daddy', now…

"You see Skyfire, they're perfectly safe," Megatron said, walking in that regal way he always did around mechs who rarely, if ever, saw him, "I was surprised to find my second in command taking care of them, but it appears they were in good servos."

Skyfire didn't look over to his high commander, but did nod his head, his optics still checking over his precious creations, looking for any sign of hurt or discomfort among them. The one that was all grey, his oldest, looked back up at him with his own little smile, reaching up and sort of pawing his faceplate. As if to say everything was okay…

Demolisher watched this as Megatron, Thrust and Starscream talked around the white jet, seeing the tiny little winglet and the look on his creator's face. It was hard to keep his away smile away…

"Who found them?" Skyfire suddenly asked, causing all words to cease around him and a sort of heavy weight to fall on Starscream and Demolisher that could only be horror. This could not possibly be good, they hadn't told Megatron anything official about how the winglets got there, he hadn't asked, but if they said it now they were both expecting to be beaten within an inch of their lives. But the white jet didn't look like he was going to let the question fall on deaf audios and repeated the question directly to the red Seeker whom he also remembered from the academy.

Starscream looked from Skyfire, to Thrust, to Demolisher and to Megatron, who, unfortunately, looked very interested in his answer now. The red Seeker opened his mouth a few times, looking a lot like an Earth fish choking on air, but no words seemed to make it passed his vocalizer, only little fuzzy sounds like static. He couldn't think with Megatron staring at him with those burning crimson optics, with Thrust looking at him as if he knew what Starscream was going to say, and Demolisher acting nervous right beside him, shifting on his peds rather pathetically… And Skyfire just looked on patiently, two of his little ones falling back into recharge and the grey one looking curiously up at everyone.

Primus, Starscream felt like his processors were going to explode in his helm…

After continuing that dry fish act for a few more moments, Megatron stepped next to the white jet, placing a servo on his shoulder strut and looking directly at Starscream in the way of the commander, "Starscream, answer this mech's question."

Starscream seemed to cringe a little at the tone in the horned mech's voice, trying to form words properly once again, "W-Why do you need to know?"

"I'd like to thank my darlings' rescuer personally," Skyfire answered, Greyshift chirping brightly at Starscream, as though to coax him for the answer. In actuality, it seemed to only make the weight on Starscream increase by three-fold.

"You… wouldn't exactly be able to reach her. She's, um, unreachable by our comm. links."

"_She_?" Both Megatron and Skyfire asked at the same time, the act of which giving Thrust a little inner chuckle. If the squid-head was faced with this position, he'd have just lied, but nooo, Starscream had a conscience and morals.

Starscream only seemed to realize this when Megatron's face darkened like a rain cloud during hurricane season and Skyfire seemed only minutely more surprised. Greyshift just continued to look between the adults curiously, giving a little twitter every so often.

'_Slag, slag, slag, slag…. Damn._' This little thought seemed to scurry around both Starscream and Demolisher's heads.


	5. Thrust on the Offense

Disclaimer: Still, the rights of these characters belong forever more to Hasbro, I'm just playing around with them. Don't worry, they'll come back mostly undamaged, if not a little traumatized.

Much thanks to all the people who are reviewing and a big shout-out to Seiberwing, whose fic Rout of Survival gave me something to mull over about Thrust. Small heads up, you'll be seeing him a lot, this time around. Oh, and I know he's not in Armada and I said this would be sticking to that series characters, but I really like add-ons, so as long as they're not OCs and I find use for them, they're going in this, so Bluestreak will be making his appearance this chapter. Touched up for Armada designs, but that's about it. His usual child-like personality has survived intact.

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**Festival of Fools:**

Sentinel Prime was truly beginning to think that one of the higher ups, like Optimus and Ultra Magnus, were really trying to drive him insane, or punish him. He didn't know why, but that's what it felt like when Hot Shot and Red Alert brought in _another_ trainee for the blue plow. This one was, eh, a little tiny bit younger than Bumblebee and just about the insect's size. He acted like a jitterbug, too, constantly shuffling around nervously and just babbling on and on and on… Somewhere in between saluting Sentinel and spewing out nonsense the sergeant would need a recording device to go through completely, the 'Bot introduced himself as Bluestreak.

He then proceeded to keep rambling as Sentinel dragged him to the common rooms to be introduced to the rest of his accursed squad.

_'Let's see, five post-organics, four Cybertronians, three femmes, six mechs plus this one… Yeah, I'm being punished for something…_' Talk about torture. Usually the other sergeants at the other camps trained a _maximum_ of _six_ new recruits at a time. Sentinel now had to teach/look after/be driven to the brink of absolute insanity by no fewer than _ten_ younglings.

_'Maybe I could get the femmes to deactivate this one?'_ The plow thought wickedly, shoving the still talking Bluestreak into the mechs recharge/personal rooms, all six of the more experienced younglings ceasing their activities in favor of eyeing their guests. This of all things managed to shut Bluestreak up.

"Cadets, this is Bluestreak and he is now the newest addition to the squad. Show him around, introduce him to the femmes and don't bother me again for the next few hours. I'll be in my office if something blows up."

**Vacuum:**

"I vould like very much to see Demolisher… Now."

The little tracker Mini-con stared at the triple changer with a little tilt of the helm. Since when did this screw loose slagger willingly see the tank on his days off? If Blackout remembered correctly, Demolisher's last confrontation with Blitzwing ended rather badly, with the flying mech's right wing bent backwards and Demolisher missing some paint off his faceplates.

However, Blackout didn't feel like getting crushed by the now stoic mech's irrationally insane side, so he motioned for Blitzwing to wait a moment and rushed into Demolisher's room to inform him of his "guest."

Five seconds later, in between having Blitzwing tap his right ped millions of miles per hour, Demolisher came grumbling out, Blackout deciding to remain under his Bulk's berth in the likely event of a laser fight.

"What do you want Blitz-brain--"

"Listen to me you simpering vide load," Blitzwing commanded, switching to his much more hostile red face, accent much heavier, " I'm only here because Shockwave has been bothering me for zee information for days! Where do you go ev'ry five days zat has you coming back to base looking like newly bonded mech?!"

The mostly yellow tank's optics flickered on and off twice as he took in the high sound level of the Hothead Blitzwing's voice and tried to weed out the actual words. He always found it difficult to understand the German-style accent of the 'Con when he got like this.

"Could you repeat that?"

A quick, startling switch to Random Blitzwing and Demolisher understood immediately, despite the creepy-aft sing-song voice, "Who you interfacing zat's got you all chipper?"

The much stronger Decepticon allowed a smile that easily rivaled the triple changer to cross over his face. Oh, so now the chief communications/spy expert was interested in the lesser officer's social life now that he actually had one? Not interested enough to find out for himself, though.

Not bothering to answer the ridiculous question, Demolisher turned back around and shut the door in Icy Blitzwing's face, saying from beyond the not-so-thick door, "If Shockwave wants to stick his lack-of-scent receptors in my business, have him come see me himself."

**Bowling for Bots:**

"Tidal Wave, please, I'm begging you for some kind of leverage," Fred practically beseeched of the monstrous battleship, "What did I do that makes you use me as a freaking spiked bowling ball every time we're in battle near each other? Have I offended you in some way, or do you just not like me?"

Drinking from a cube of energon that the Mini-cons could recycle and hot-tub within, Tidal Wave continued to give his usual utterly blank expression as the young post-human jeep continued drinking from his own energon. He didn't need to eat nearly as much as he used to, mostly because it wasn't necessary and most of the energon tasted the same, but that didn't mean he wouldn't savor the high-grade.

"Tidal Wave… Likes teasing youngling."

"Okay then," Fred answered calmly, rather like Red Alert, but a bit perkier, "Tease me all you want, but please, no more picking me up and throwing me back at my friends."

"Mmm… No."

A quarter second later, the deep black 'Bot in training thunked his head off the bar twice to take his mind off of just how _exhausting_ it was talking to a mech that, according to Alexis and Thrust, must be smarter than he looked. By all accounts he should be able to have a conversation with Tidal Wave like he was a normal… okay, average sentient robot. But no, Tidal Wave had to be difficult.

**Regality:**

Blue optics continued to stare at the treasure trove of a view set out before Moonracer, highlighted through the window she stood before at the top floor of the one skyscraper that was strictly members only. She really didn't want to be there, she wanted to see her brother, but she didn't want to be in this place, looked at like a piece of jewelry by the dozens of Towers mech roaming the halls in groups.

And to think, three months ago she enjoyed the attentions of the more than aesthetically pleasing Elite Guard trainees and artists and boring as sin politicians. Now the attentions felt…

"Moonracer," Mirage called, stepping back over to his younger sibling now that his discussion with his superiors was over, the whole lot of them giving the bluish green femme a once over on their way downstairs, "I'm sorry that took so long. Anyway, how have you been? You haven't contacted me in a few weeks, I was starting to get worried about you."

Ah, Mirage the Hyper Alert was worried about his baby sister. That's why he rang her sergeant up and asked for her to be delivered to her brother as soon as possible, "Oh, Mirage, you worry too much. I just came back from a retrieval mission with some of the others in my unit, that's all."

Maybe she should have thought over her words more carefully, seeing as Mirage looked like he was about to have an all systems failure at the word 'mission'.

"That's _all_? That's all she says," And here he took a quick swig of the high-grade he'd been allowed since it was his day off, "Moonie, why didn't you tell me you were even going on a mission? You only started training a few months ago, how could you be ready for field work?! I'm so going to put a ten ton weight on Sentinel!"

The femme gave a little noise of exasperation, "Brother, there were four other 'Bots on the mission with me! Sentinel knew our location at all times and even if we were attacked by 'Cons, Rad and Wasp could have taken them on, knocked them out and gotten us back to base in no time. And anyway, isn't the reason you sent me to Sentinel so I could actually defend, protect and take care of myself?"

"No," Mirage answered in that way that she used to find so mature, but now just made her want to slug him in the shoulder strut, "I sent you there so you'd be safe from any 'Cons that objected to your spark-bonding ceremony next month."

"Please, don't remind me of that. I really don't want to think about it anymore," Moonracer begged sadly, moving from the window to follow her brother downstairs to look at more of those Primus awful paintings the building was showcasing.

Mirage's yellow optics seemed to dim at the way her voice changed, inwardly just as miserable at the seeming plight of his closest relative. He rubbed her shoulder strut to give her some comfort, "I'm sorry, Moonie. I wish I could change the council's decision, but this will save hundreds of lives. With this union we—"

"Will be able to interact with the Decepticons without the threat of attack and instill piece to Iacon. I know, but it's still scary. I don't even know the mech's name, where he's from or if he'd even like me," The small femme said, feeling the weight of this situation on her back once more. Bond with a mech she didn't know so that the city would stop the war within its borders and save lives or reject the mech and ruin and destroy lives.

"What's gotten into you," Mirage asked as they descended the staircase, not taking notice as another tightly knit group of mechs passed by and ogled his sister, only noticing how his she bristled, "You would have been happy about this before I sent you to the training camp."

"Before you sent me to the training camp I was pretty much just some worthless but pretty doll who would have done anything to please our creators and you," Moonracer snapped, sending a glare at a mech who was headed her way with two cubes of high-grade and basically made him make a one-hundred and eighty degree turn, "Things are different now, Mirage."

**Follow Me Into Battle:**

"Do you ever just wake up from recharge some mornings and realize that nobody likes you?"

"Shut up," Thrust ordered, climbing up the muddy hill while still somehow managing to keep his balance, the tank just ahead of him not even turning at the command that he really didn't have to follow, seeing as this was his day—er, night—off, "I'm not letting you go to the bar alone when the last time you did this you got, pardon the expression, completely plastered and found yourself in Cyclonus' berth! Also, if that happened again, Megatron would be very displeased."

"Primus forbid you forgoing the chance to do the right thing and suck up to the boss at the same time," Demolisher quipped, grabbing the stealth jet's wing when he almost tripped and went rolling downhill a second time. He didn't want to wait any longer than he had to and he was late enough as it was.

"Exactly! Plus, as an added bonus for being you chaperone, I'll finally get to see the person you're always sneaking off to see."

"I don't sneak off, I just don't want anyone ruining my fun. Also," And here Demolisher actually bothered to use discretion, "You already know her. You simply find her irritating and unworthy to stay in close proximity of you for more than, oh, I don't know, your record so far is ten minutes when not in combat."

Thrust gave a little start. Combat? He didn't battle femmes unless he either insulted them in some minor way or they were enemies…

"Are you courting an Autobot?!"

"No, you half-wit! We just exchange witty banter, light barbs and the occasional gossip… and such."

"And such?" Thrust coaxed, now very interested in meeting this femme who could remain platonic with the tank and find him mentally worthy at the same time.

"Never mind."

**Porn:**

"You know," Rad began, still holding the datapad with multiple digit prints all over it, the two bugs he'd come to call friend looking ashamedly down at their servos or peds or the cracks in the floor they'd already memorized, just so long as they didn't look directly at the blue racer, "I realize you're mechs, you have needs. We're all mechs and we all have needs, even Sentinel and I. However, I'd just like to point out that since we're all teenagers, we all have to be careful about leaving our things out in the open. Especially things that could, say, lead to a sexual harassment seminar and the femmes in our unit wreaking havoc in the name of feminine rights. I believe we're in agreement that none of us want that."

Bumblebee made to speak up, make a smart remark or a joke, but Wasp had enough sense to silence him with a swift nudge with his elbow plate into Bumblebee's midsection.

Rad held the datapad that within held two hundred or so digital holograms of femmes and mechs that were in extremely compromising positions. Not in the way of internal affairs investigations, but in the way that if his parents found this back in Rad's room on Earth with human pictures instead of holograms, he'd be facing a grounding that would last until he got a job and _bribed_ them. He almost felt bad for doing what he had to do, but it was necessary if these two were going to learn their lesson without Sentinel finding out or, God forbid, the femmes.

"Until you find somewhere much, much more private and safe to hide… this, I'm going to hold onto it."

"B-But, Rad," Wasp objected, holding onto his yellow friend to make sure Bee didn't do anything worse than the green mech might.

Rad raised his servo to cease Wasp from continuing, opening his subspace pocket and put the datapad within. Really, the thing was a tight fit, but it was the best he could do until much later, "Come and get me when you find somewhere to put this. Trust me, I don't want this in my possession any longer than is absolutely needed. I don't find these particularly useful for romancing."

"Romancing?" Bumblebee asked, leaning back on his position atop the berth Rad had placed both the bugs on.

"Get a girlfriend."

**Happiness:**

Red Alert continued to pace through the med-bays, Ratchet continuing his paperwork and First Aid simply observing the mostly blue 'Bot. It had been hours since he'd started that nervous movement, body language telling his co-workers just how worried he was about his charges from Earth. They hadn't heard word from them for weeks and they'd stumbled, fallen and passed out just four yards from the Autobot's base on the planet the Decepticons were trying to take over.

Hot Shot had fallen into recharge half an hour ago only because Ratchet had slipped him some sleep aids in the energon he'd been taking light sips of since he'd heard Carlos and Billy were safe and out of the clutches of Shockwave. Poor yellow mech had been under the impression that it was all his fault the two motorcycles had been captured, despite Hot Shot's injuries that said otherwise. He hadn't even been able to walk around before two weeks ago on account of the damage to his legs from that lying piece of scrap Shockwave.

"Are you sure they'll be alright?" Red Alert suddenly asked, turning to Ratchet from the far side of the room, worry plainly evident on his faceplates.

Ratchet looked up from his paperwork, First Aid looking from the older bots and to the doorway that lead down to the ward that the two post-organics would stay for the night.

"You know that in healing nothing is absolutely certain Red Alert, but I'd say the odds are very much in their favor," The medic answered, noticing the way the younger mech's face seemed to lose some of its worry and settle into calm lines that were less harsh to be perceived by the optics. That was as close to a 'yes, probably' that any medic had or would ever get from Ratchet the Hatchet.

**Science is Art, Art is Ambiguous:**

If Thrust had ever been more uncomfortable, he couldn't remember it. Stuck on a basically deserted high wire in jet form with no means of propulsion because his power wire were half frozen and glitching. And it hurt considering he'd crashed fifteen minutes ago right by an empty Autobot barracks with, ahem, fences. Said fences scraping his underside just before he landed. Slag.

Then, of course, Primus decided he'd get help from someone he found tolerable, so long as her mouth stayed melded shut.

"Do you even know what you're doing?" The stealth jet asked, his voice grainy because his alt mode's voice box was down south and currently covered in mud.

Alexis, using her electric abilities for only the tenth time now, concentrated the positive and negative energy into her left and right servos and lightly tapped her fingers together. Some very dangerous sparks formed as a result of that action, lighting her annoyed expression for his sight sensors.

"Primus…" Thrust groaned, his wings cringing noticeably.

"You know," The green femme spoke, crawling under his left wing to poke around the inside and find those naughty wires that had sent the squid-head crashing, "I don't have to help you out. I could have just passed over you, gone on to Velocitron and enjoyed the rest of my weekend. But, no! I had to pull over and help you out because you don't have enough sense to winterize your wiring—Ah, there it is!"

"Hey!" Thrust squawked, trying hard not to giggle. The wires Alexis was handling were delicate and always sent little vibrations through his systems in what humans called tickles, "Just be careful, pipsqueak, if you try and deactiv--- Yow! What the slag was that?!"

"Sorry, that one's completely frozen, so it needs a warm-up," The green flyer called from below, twiddling the bluish wire between two digits, the electricity that would have been deadly to most lowering drastically to make sure she didn't damage the tactician. She may not have liked him, but even he had bad days and she could still feel bad about it. Despite what Sentinel and half the Autobot army said, the Decepticons weren't all bad, even this one.

**Maturity:**

"You-you-you…. Fucking… bastards!"

Oh, so not a good sign when it happens at the beginning of any confrontation. Name calling this early meant there would most likely be body parts strewn around like confetti by the end. But, then, that's why Hot Shot had volunteered to go with Blurr and Sunstreaker when they informed the sensitive hacker of their night of dirty, drunken interfacing. And because he cared about Sideswipe, of course.

The blue younger twin had little dribbles of saline forming in his optics and Blurr had never felt so completely worthless since he woke up from recharge while holding the golden twin in his berth the week before. No, actually, he felt worse, seeing as at the time he could only imagine how Sideswipe would react and now he was seeing it personally.

But, at least Blurr had the decency to look ashamed and apologetic to the core. Sunstreaker just stood before his brother like what they had confessed to was nothing at all. Just like he always did in these situations. It really made Sideswipe want to beat him to death.

"Sunny, did you… did you do this on purpose?" The blue mech asked, doing what he could to wipe away his tears when they just kept on coming back thicker than before.

"Well," Sunstreaker began, almost hesitantly but not quite enough to be considered out of guilt, more like he was choosing his words carefully, "Not at first, but look at him! He's gorgeous! I couldn't help it."

Okay, now Hot Shot was really thinking of punching the yellow mech out just because that was the worst thing he could ever, _ever_ say to Sideswipe. Blurr looked like the thought had crossed his mind as well.

Sideswipe had the thought cross his processors, too. And he acted on it. Twice, thrice, four times before Sunstreaker seemed to realize he screwed up, "You are such a jerk! You only think about yourself! I want to kill you!!" Now Sideswipe was sitting on his twin's chassis, knee struts holding his arms down and using both servos to pound in the golden twin's face plates.

"Easy killer!" Hot Shot finally ordered, pulling the smaller mech off the now processed energon dripping Sunstreaker, who finally appeared to be sorry and understand what he'd done. Sideswipe rarely, if ever, meant to hit him and this was not hitting for fun, Sides' really wanted to hurt him.

"Sides'…"

"Forget it!" Sideswipe practically screamed, clawing out of Hot Shot's hold and transforming to speed away back to his room at the base. Tire marks were left where he'd landed, smoke from the pressure on the wheels wafting through the air and circling around the three remaining mechs. If Sideswipe was going to cry, he'd do it on his own berth with the door to his room locked and under the impression that the walls were soundproof when in actuality they were almost paper thin and echoed.

**Radiate:**

Waking up from recharge was something Firestar had internally been dreading since the wonderful, almost dream-like evening before. She didn't want to look up and discover that her new friend and date had most probably left right after the red and orange beauty had fallen into the aftermath of overload. It always happened to her, and she didn't want it to happen this time, so better to stave off the inevitable and keep her optics offline for as long as--

"Hey, sugar, you awake yet?"

…He hadn't left?

Ignoring the long implanted assumptions she'd had for a long time, Firestar's optics online to look into the deep black post-human's. He was smiling sweetly at her, charming as ever, even if he was really groggy because his systems hadn't cleared away the residual traces of the high-grade they'd consumed. Fred didn't question the obvious surprise on the femme's face, but enjoyed the warmth coming off of her in waves.

"You're looking quite fetching this morning. Have a good night sleep?"

"Um, yeah… you?" Firestar almost stuttered, unsure what to make of their current situation and the way Fred brought his arms around her mid-section not helping to clear her head, though making her tremendously more secure from falling off the edge of the berth they'd shared. It was nice, she never thought she'd have someone this protective over her before.

"Mm, very good. That workout you gave me did wonders." The mech complimented.

If it were possible, Firestar's face plates would have burst into a blaze at the comment, settling for turning completely red and raising in temperature enough for Fred to ask if she was okay.

**Triple A**:

"A little help, please?"

Bluestreak had felt humiliated a lot in his life, but this was ridiculous! Why did those Elite Guard graduates have to stuff him in the storage locker when he hadn't even done anything wrong? He'd just been looking for the mess hall and BAM! There he was, helm on the floor and limbs in such an uncomfortable position as to make him want to cry out.

"Hello? Anybody! Please--!"

Light suddenly streamed into his confinement space, his optics offlining for a moment because it happened so fast and to be sure he hadn't been knocked into recharge. He looked up from his position and into the faceplates of the tall pumpkin motorcycle he'd spoken to once the day before when he'd entered the training camp. What was his name, Blacky, Liar, Builder?

"Okay, I'm not from around here, but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that," The orange mech said jokingly, wrapping his arms around the blue/grey mech's mid-section and hauling him out of the nest of cleaning products and boxes of who knew what. Bluestreak nearly cried out in joy, despite still being upside down. That was soon remedied as the motorcycle set him on a nearby table, still smiling kindly at the new recruit.

"Let me guess, Elite Guard graduates?"

"Yes! How did you know?" Bluestreak asked, moving a sore joint in his neck wires, his head lolling back and forth.

"They tried to do the same thing to me and Carlos, the purple motorcycle in our unit, when we joined. They got a nasty little surprise, though. You alright?"

"I am now. Thank you…."

"Billy, but you can call me Black Lie since nobody seems to remember my real name," Billy answered, helping the shorter mech off the table and giving him a once over to be sure that Bluestreak didn't have any underlying problems with his other joints. He was happy to find both legs in perfect working order.

"So," Billy began, moving for the door and dragging Bluestreak along, "Where were you headed before you were so rudely mishandled?"

"Um, the mess hall. I haven't refueled yet and missed this morning's meal time."

"That's good, I'll take you since I was headed there myself to see if Fred—you can call him Nightrider if you want—and Firestar had finally surfaced from the depths of solitary confinement. You might have heard about their little maneuver last evening?"

"N-no," Bluestreak answered, a little surprised at how nice this mech was when he'd heard Sentinel calling him all kinds of expletives during training earlier that day, "Nobody's talked to me since yesterday."

Another one of those cheery smiles worked over Billy's faceplates making Bluestreak feel a little better than he had just five seconds ago. Who knew that a mech he hadn't even spoken ten whole sentences to would take to him so easily? Maybe the rumors circling about this training camp were all wrong?

"Bluestreak my friend, it's time to introduce you to a few things deemed necessary by us here at Camp Let's Rise Up and Torture the Sergeant…"

But, then again, if the rumors all turned out to be true, then Bluestreak couldn't expect to be bored anytime in the near future.

**Expect the Unexpected:**

At first, Skywarp thought the thing he'd saw was an allusion created to make sure that he would be loyal to his brothers no matter the circumstances, but now that proof was impossible to deny, he couldn't resist poking the proverbial Terracon in the room. Even if that proverbial Terracon was Starscream and he was holding some really heavy equipment. That just made all the more fun, since Thundercracker was also there and all three of them had the communications room to themselves for the next, eh, he'd put it at about an hour and a half since Shockwave had left muttering about Demolisher and Blitzwing.

"You interfaced last night."

The response was immediate and painful. Thundercracked spun in his chair to get a perfect view of his red and white brother dropping the weird but heavy metal box with the wires criss-crossing over the whole of it onto his foot, there upon jumping up and down moaning in pain at the same times he shot a horrified look at the black and purple Seeker looking on innocently.

"I did—It's imposs—It's nobody you know!"

Skywarp cackled at Starscream's reaction, waiting just before he bent to pick up the box before saying something more, "Was it Jetfire?"

This time TC's jaw dropped at the same time Starscream's back hit the wall in utter shock at how dead on his brother was. Of all the Decepticons to figure out his secret, why did it have to be his twelve seconds younger brother?

"I-I-I-I…I'm getting out of here before you figure out every detail, you pervert!" Starscream announced moving once more for the box. If he touched the box, maybe Skywarp would drop this line of conversation and Thundercracker would stop looking at him like he'd been abducted and some kind of virus had infiltrated his systems.

Skywarp rested his head on his servo, grinning even wider at how flustered Screamer was and wondering how much further he could push this, "Don't be a glitch head. I could never figure out every detail… I only know it was twice."

Here, Starscream actually swayed back, feeling very dizzy and was unsure if a rather feminine scream had left his voice box or not. Oh, no, _no_, **no**, _**no**_… Skywarp had been completely right, and if Skywarp, the joker, the trickster, the perpetual God of Pranks found out about this somehow, he knew it wouldn't be too long until Megatron himself found out, ripped his head right off his shoulders and hung it on the wall. He was too young to die! There was still so much he was meant to do! There were so many positions he and Jetfire hadn't tried yet!

Starscream had enough self control not to punch his brother in the face, but instead leaned in near him with his pointer digit aimed at Skywarp's face as he brought down the big brother card like a lifeline, "You can't tell anyone. Do you promise?"

"Of course, Screamer, I promise," Skywarp said, making to move to help pick up the box, but stopped and held onto chair as Starscream brought his leg up and slammed his ped down on the edge of the control panel, blocking the other Seeker, "Swear it. Swear on Thundercracker…" Skywarp rolled his optics, "On Megatron…" Skywarp glanced at his servos, "Swear on your Best Prank Ever."

Skywarp gasped. Not that! He could never break a swear on that! But, then, it was Starscream's life…

"Oh, fine, I swear! Do you have to take the fun out of everything?"

**Mutant:**

"Would any of you be interested in interfacing Demolisher?"

For the few femmes that there were in the Decepticon ranks, this suggestion that came from possibly the greatest military tactician was the funniest thing they'd heard in a long time. As a result, the hall they were settled in for refueling was filled with boisterous, but wicked laughter, a few of the femmes going so far as to spray the energon they'd been drinking right out of their mouths.

Thrust decided he should be a little offended for the tank. It wasn't _that_ funny…

"Maybe if we were the last two Decepticons online," A Seeker Thrust could identify as Slipstream called from the back, "And there were no Autobots. Are there Autobots in this hypothetical situation?"

"Look, maybe you all could think of this as an arrangement," Thrust spoke again, pulling a datapad from his subspace pocket, "For the first femme here to romance, drink with and interface with Demolisher, you will be compensated generously. Considering he hasn't interfaced in a while, he'd be most generous in the berth, if that helps any."

Two femmes threw their energon at Thrust for such a degenerate comment, hitting his peds and his wing. However, he noted that the Seeker who'd spoken up before looked somewhat interested now. Maybe there was hope for this crazy plan yet.

"How much are we talking here?" Slipstream called out, lifting her energon to her lips for the slightest of sips so she wouldn't spit if this turned out to be too surprising.

"2.1 million credits, plus reasonable expenses. More if combat is involved, since you'll have to keep him away from another femme that I'm under the impression he's courting. Are you interested?"

Slipstream chugged the rest of her high-grade and snatched the datapad from the slightly taller Decepticon, optics roaming over the details in the fine print. Demolisher was the tank that was practically Megatron's right hand mech, she'd seen him plenty of times from previous battles and followed orders he'd given her while on base. It was true, he was reasonably attractive for a groundcrawler, but what interested her were the small digital pictures of the femme sitting with the tank at what Slipstream cold identify as a neutral bar in Iacon. Kinda small for a flyer, with a physical design she'd never seen before, very odd wings of a green the Seeker couldn't identify, and most notably, a very young Autobot.

"Are you even sure this is who he's interested in?" The dark femme asked, looking back up from the datapad to Thrust, the tactician's arms having crossed in satisfaction that she'd looked over his whole report on the matter.

"Why else would he go to see her? She never gets drunk and he's certainly not giving away information when he always leaves looking disgustingly happy when he drinks only half as much as he usually does when he goes alone."

Slipstream looked over the datapad one more time and then fixed Thrust with quite possibly the most scary-ass smile he'd ever seen, "It's your credits."

Thrust felt that maybe he'd made a big mistake…

**Sensation:**

Arcee was not a femme to be deterred from her work. She had been assigned by Prowl to get as much information as possible on the post-organic younglings that were actually much closer to her age then they seemed and she was damn well going to get the job done! To say that it was easy, though, would be a lie she'd only expect to come off the glossa of Megatron. No, it wasn't easy at all. In fact, half of the info she'd gotten was only in the beginning stages formed from bits and pieces. The only post-organic she'd gotten a full history from was Rad and that was through a quid pro quo session that resulted in her buying him rust sticks.

Prowl, emotionless glitch head that he was, really only seemed interested in their five senses that had either heightened or lessened depending on the individual. She'd gone to their surrogate family for the info first, but all they'd had for answers were 'Ask them yourself, because we're not sure.' Even Optimus-fragging-Prime had told her that!

When she actually started asking the younglings, the reactions had varied so much that she wondered if they really were from the same planet, continent, or city.

Rad was nice enough to co-operate (sorta) when they were together in the communications room, answers occasionally laced with sexual innuendo that actually started up Arcee's cooling systems. That was nice and the pink and white femme looked forward to a chance to do that again as soon as possible. A useful piece of information came to light about his antennae, though. They were probably the most sensitive part of his anatomy, short of his… She'd try and keep that bit to herself.

Carlos did his best when she came to him while on scouting duty, answering most of her questions except the ones that had anything to do with his right brain and left arm. Those questions had made him really angry. The session had actually ended in his left servo grinding a rock into dust and the purple mech muttering curses about helicopters. She'd made it a point that the next time she spoke with him to open with mentioning a run-in with Cyclonus. Primus knew the right side of his brain (which really freaked her out when she found that it was basically a separate person from the Spaniard) would be so pleased.

Arcee would be forever happy if she never had to speak with Alexis again. The only place that the younger femme hadn't slammed a door in Arcee's face was that bar in Iacon. Interesting fact she'd picked up there was that the green femme had Demolisher as a drinking buddy. Scary as the tank was to Arcee, it was because of his presence that she managed to get most of her questions needed from the Earthling. After some coaxing, Arcee had even found out that unlike most flyers, Alexis really didn't give a frag if her wings were blown off, since the last two times they'd been taken the green femme said they'd itched for a few minutes and then scabbed over from her energon originated blood. Gross.

The pink femme would have been happy to have taken Billy's history alone, but he'd been training with the Cybertronian mechs in his unit and wouldn't move, so she'd had to endure jokes passing around them like it was a rule. Arcee had to actually weed out what was fact and what was a joke with Bumblebee hitting on her, Wasp occasionally doing the same and Bluestreak putting in his two cents every so often. Billy, despite this, had answered almost all of her questions, until she got to his romantic history. She was pretty sure everything that his vocals processed was total slag after that. All except the fact that his horns were most likely the strongest, endurable and sensitive part of his body. She could believe that because he kept shivering when something bumped them.

Fred had been the most well behaved of the whole lot, but she felt that his answers were practically worthless. He didn't know how strong he was, he wasn't sure how fast he was, he couldn't say for certain what energon tasted like, he wasn't able to describe what touch and temperature was like anymore. The only straight answer she got was when he could hear a sparkling in the nursery wing crying and she couldn't. Extra perceptive hearing. After dealing with him she went drinking with Chromia and Elita, comm'ed Prowl and told him she needed a lot more time to complete her reports, maybe a whole year?

**Somebody Scream:**

"Oh, Primus… Why don't you just put some naked femmes in cages, you pricks?!"

Scavenger was tempted to laugh at the way Optimus was getting cratered and taking it out on the surround-sound installed though the club the bulldozer had dragged the Prime away to when rumors had finally started spreading about the younger mech's problems with Elita. Optimus was down-right miserable, bemoaning the fact that, as Scavenger had heard it from a pair of femmes in the main control room, Elita had grown steadily less interested in being in love with the commander of all Autobots. She still loved him to some degree, but more like a good friend than the 'Bot she'd chosen to spend the rest of her onlined days with.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, the silver lining to this cloud is that you don't have sparklings."

Optimus' piercing yellow eyes spoke degrees more than his words ever could, but Scavenger had long ago gotten used to such a look from the soft-spark sitting before him, he didn't even flinch. It may have made the blue and red mech feel better if he had, though.

"How is that a silver lining?!"

"Well, you can, as the humans say, get a divorce without it dragging on this way," Scavenger said, sipping his own high-grade and taking special care not to so much as glance at Optimus' ultra-grade. Last time the ex-mercenary drank that he'd punched out Blurr and didn't want to risk doing the same to the Prime if he started getting mean.

"I don't want to get divorced!" Optimus cried, some mechs dancing behind him giving him a look at the odd word. Transformers didn't get divorced, didn't even separate for the risk of that happening could lead to both parties deaths. A sort of Russian roulette with their sparks. That's why Scavenger wanted to take it slow with Smokescreen, in case one of them changed his mind when things got serious.

Optimus, Leader of All Autobots, on the other servo, could probably survive the transaction. Elita more than likely could, too, seeing as she was the strongest femme the bulldozer had ever met. She wasn't in love with the semi anymore, so it would only make sense that she'd mutually agree to it and set them both free to find somebody to love forever.

If only Scavenger could get Optimus to agree to it, it would benefit everybot involved.


	6. Electric and Bleeding

Disclaimer: No owns anything, so don't sue.

Okay, this latest chapter was inspired by MissCHSparkles latest up-date on her fic The Transformer Kids, and thus this chapter is dedicated to her. Now I finally have a motivation to write a combat drabble!  
Also, I would appreciate those who reviewed to give me some insight into which characters you'd like to see more of. I feel like I'm stuck in a loop and would like to get out now…

Oh, and I've decided on the pairings that will show up here, finally! These might not be concrete and I may change them if deemed absolutely necessary, but so far I have these:

Megatron/Optimus, Cyclonus/Red Alert, Hot Shot/Wheeljack, Scavenger/Smokescreen, Starscream/Jetfire, Sideswipe/Blurr/Sunstreaker, Chromia/Ironhide, Elita/Sentinel, Bumblebee/Wasp, Billy/Carlos, Rad/Arcee, Fred/Firestar, Sureshock/Swindle… I haven't decided entirely on the rest, Alexis, Bluestreak and Moonracer will remain undetermined until I write a make-out scene, or something.

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**Do You Like Waffles?:**

Eyes like witch hazel stared at Bumblebee with a look of blankness that could rival a clean sheet of paper. By Primus, if Alexis wanted to discuss food again when none of the post-humans could even eat anymore she'd hang out with Fred a lot more. Since when did this yellow bug know anything about Earth food?...Eh, actually, she had a pretty good idea of how, but better to let him explain than to get annoyed for no reason at one of her "brothers."

"I'm sorry, could we rewind and repeat that question?" Alexis asked, still busy bench pressing the weights she'd finally managed to lift a week ago despite Sentinel promising a femme could never lift these particular weights.

"What are waffles? Billy said that they're even more delicious than rust sticks and I would like to try some," The slightly shorter Transformer said, looking hopeful. Which made it all the harder for Alexis to easily crush this wish. She really was a sucker for blue eyed boys, even if they were robotic and technically much older than her.

Alexis tried to stall, hoping that something would come to mind if she rambled. It worked with Bluestreak, so why not her? "Well, waffles are a human food that people usually eat in the mornings, unless you happen to be one of those breakfast for dinner people, which really aren't that rare and can sometimes be more delicious when you're not just coming out of a fitful sleep and your taste buds are working and not tasting like something crawled into your mouth and died during the night."

Bumblebee looked very confused. Partly because she'd just spoken as fast and long as Bluestreak when she barely spoke like this to anyone, but also because she just raised more questions in his head than answers, "So, what do these waffles taste like when you're wide awake and not having a dead creature in your mouth?"

The green femme searched her mind for something from Cybertron she could use for comparison of the human meal, but was drawing a total blank. Almost everything she'd had on the Transformers planet was either a flavor she couldn't really describe or altogether bitter in her mouth.

"Go find Fred, he'll tell you."

"'Kay!"

**Fifty Percent Pain:**

This was just like when Wheeljack had been left in that fire. Only, the roles had been reversed with added complications from Hot Shot's left shoulder strut bleeding out mechfluid by the pint and the yellow 'Bot laying on his front, buried in rubble with nobody nearby. Hot Shot felt it was oddly fitting. After this mission he was going to go and try and convince his bitter old friend not to become bondmates with that Towers femme. The now gold and black ex-Autobot wasn't right for the assignment, Megatron could easily get some other 'Con to do it.

And now he'd never get the chance. The battle had moved much further away from his position under the massive cement blocks the building that had previously stood tall and proud above the soldier had dropped upon him from a rogue laser shot. The flames were growing in size and heat, as well. In less than thirty minutes Hot Shot would be lucky if they could identify his liquefied, disfigured and soot stained shell.

Internally, he felt he deserved this. Payment for his sins was inevitable and this was just the perfect way to pay the piper. If he could have cried out—impossible now, since when the cement crushed him to the ground, his voice box was pierced by a small metal pike sticking up from the ground—he wouldn't have bothered.

A lick of flame brushed painfully across his legs, the feeling was awful, he could feel the metal that made up his knee joints melt and meld into crevices that had just earlier been used to change into vehicle mode. The flame moved up, closer to his one arm that was still out in the open and not covered in rock. The digits on his servos curled to prevent everything being touched by that horrible heat.

And the whole time he just kept repeating in his head, '_I'm sorry, Wheeljack…_'

**Electric & Bleeding:**

When the five post-humans had first been brought back from beyond the veil, they had been very freaked out but were willing to let Red Alert give them a look-over to be sure every part of them worked and they were at no risk for slipping into Death's clutches once more.

The medic treated them with the utmost respect, which they were grateful for. Red Alert was happy when he looked at Billy, Fred and Carlos' Sparks, all different shades and sizes, but never-the-less healthy and fully functional, their chest plates able to part when they needed them to and able to protect their Spark's if the situation presented itself. Red Alert would later comment that they were the oddest shades he'd ever seen. Billy had one that looked like a flame, red and yellow swirling together beautifully. Carlos had one that was like the sands they'd seen in the Sahara, all gold that shifted in the light. And Fred, who'd been hesitant at first to even look at his Spark, had the most adorable look in his optics when he saw that it was a clear and light blue with little flecks of green that moved when the Spark pulsed. All of them were awesome sights for Red Alert.

Now, when the blue medic got to Rad and Alexis, however, he'd felt very worried for their safety and their lives. Rad's triangular chest plate was covered in a synthetic skin that Red Alert had to cut through with his laser to get through, taking about fifteen minutes to peel back and away from the seams and to find the latch that allowed him to look into the teen's chassis cavity. Inside, and this had shocked Red Alert rather badly, was a perfect replica of a human heart, but it was blue and made of Cybertronian metals, wires and cords weaving in and out of it and crossing through miniscule holes that led through the whole of Rad's body to give him energon, other fuels and electric energy. When Red Alert touched it, Rad had cycled his vents and flinched, his metal heart thumping against the blue 'Bot's digits, leaving them pleasantly warm. Rad seemed fine with it, refusing to have it replaced with an actual Spark, very brave.

A few hours after looking over Rad, Red Alert got an even worse shock from looking over Alexis. While she also had a triangular chest plate and had to have her soft, pliable metal skin cut into, it only took the medic five minutes with a scalpel. However, her plate detached itself from its position by itself and revealed what was held within, giving Red Alert the urge to cringe. Inside was something that looked like a half metal, half organic parasite that had attached itself to the inside of her and decided to let its tentacles or whatever the Pit they were, flow through the rest of the femme's body, converting energon into something so similar to blood that the medic could actually smell a mix of iron and copper. When his hand reached in to touch the thing that was probably a heart, his digits barely grazed it and she gave a little gasp, her heart giving a jolt and moving away from the contact, leaving a few drops of blood behind.

All of the younglings survived, though, all accepting the change.

But, when they got to Cybertron, the medic began to worry. What would happen if three of the mechs' Sparks left their chambers? What if Rad had to have a new part installed to his heart when he got upgrades? What would happen if someone stabbed Alexis through the chest plate? Would they live long enough to actually find purpose in their new forms? Oh, what would happen when they found mates? What would happen when they wanted Sparklings?!

Optimus had assured him that everything would work itself out, promised Red Alert that they would be alright. Still, Red Alert could feel the beginnings of change in the younglings he'd spent the better part of five years helping to raise.

He knew, just knew, that Billy and Carlos were an item. They'd not bothered to be quiet their first time together and by dawn the next day all of their surrogate family knew. Red Alert couldn't help but worry about how their Sparks had taken it and insisted on a check-up. They'd actually been better than the last time he'd checked them, but if nothing else, his checking over their energy riddled Sparks had dampened any chance of them going at it again for about five days, much to their chagrin.

Firestar had actually come to him when she and Fred had spent the night together, wanting the medic she considered an old friend to make sure the black mech would be alright. Fred had been better than alright, he'd been positively glowing, the Spark in his chest practically a star with all the excess energy compliments of the red femme. Red Alert had insisted that Firestar get checked as well, though, to be sure Fred's Spark had no ill effects on her. Nothing seemed wrong, her own Spark simply skipping a pulse whenever the medic brought up her and Fred's night together.

Nothing had happened yet with Rad, but Red Alert had seen how Arcee looked at him. The pink femme seemed to really like the blue sports car, visiting him when she got the chance and asking all kinds of questions about Earth. Rad was clueless of course, everyone noticing how Arcee acted when he was practically blind to any romantic readings coming off of her, and Red Alert was privately glad. With the way Rad's heart was and being the only medic on Cybertron who knew anything about the fine piece of life support, the medic wasn't sure he could be there when Rad finally noticed he had an admirer.

As for his last person of internal worry, Red Alert believed it was fifty-fifty on the chance of her surviving any sort of romance. This worried him tremendously, Alexis being the only femme and also being the most organic of the lot made him actually check up on her whenever he could. He didn't worry too much lately, since she'd basically sworn off love when Starscream and Jetfire got together, squashing her crush to bits and leaving her bitter and alone. As stupid as he felt for this, he was glad she wouldn't be at risk for a while. No love, no chance of her heart possibly becoming a dead muscle or exploding or any of the other dozen things he felt could go wrong.

And Cyclonus wondered why the medic was so stressed all the time. Clueless idiot.

**Chop Stickin':**

Quite frankly, Smokescreen was pretty sure he was going to personally offline Jazz. Yes, he realized that the music meant well in everything he did, but the tow truck couldn't take this anymore!

Knock, knock, knock, "Jazz!" Knock, knock, knock, "Jazz!!" Knock, knock, knock, "JAZZ!!"

The door to the silver mech's room opened with a little swish of the doors, Jazz poking his head out from his domain and wondering why the usually cheery orange soldier looked like slag, "Yeah, what is it, man?"

"Your music," Smokescreen began, keeping one servo on the door to be sure that Jazz couldn't close it when he started to get really heated and possibly violent, "I can't stand what you're playing right now. What is that, screaming wood on a chalk board?"

"No, Hot Shot gave it to me. Something called 'Barrage', and I personally think it's sweet."

"I don't mean to be rude," Sarcasm, "But the Sun isn't due to come up for another, oh," Smokescreen checked his internal clock and gave another growl, servo now grinding the metal of the doorframe, "Four hours! I would appreciate it if you'd stop the noise until then. Can you do that for me as a personal favor?"

"But," Jazz looked up pathetically, optics actually shining under his visor like glistening stars that would have made a recharged Transformer melt, but just made Smokescreen bare his dentals menacingly, "How will I go into recharge without music?"

A silent pause reigned supreme for a moment and then was filled once Smokescreen pulled a small disk (in Transformer terms) from his subspace pocket and held it before the shorter mech's face. Jazz's blue visor shined on at the ray of hope the tow truck had bestowed upon him, taking the disk gingerly between his digits and looking questioningly at the other, "What's this?"

"Something different from 'Barrage' and that won't keep me up. Some long dead human by the name of Chopin made it. Enjoy and go to recharge."

**Hexed By Fate:**

'Murphy's Law: The theory that says that everything that can go wrong, _will_ go wrong.'

"Hmm, this sounds refreshing. Why so interested in the blight of my training camp?"

Elita looked from the ten computers she had running information scans on the reports Optimus and his team had brought back from Earth and over to the tall blue plow that stood erect, reading over the computer that held tid-bits of info Jetfire had bothered to type up. If Sentinel thought anything here was stupid, Elita hoped he would keep it to himself. She'd been reading these things for the last couple of days and had yet to find anything to help her with her current predicament with Optimus, she really didn't need Sentinel voicing the doubts already forming in her processor.

"What do you want sergeant?" Elita asked, not bothering to get up and reclined further back in her foamy chair that she'd gotten when she'd become the Leader of All Femmes. It was worn out, just like she was feeling at the moment.

Sentinel didn't answer immediately, still looking over each screen, each marked by the Transformer who'd sent it in for the pink femme, each different in style and information. Really, he'd been meaning to ask Optimus for these reports himself, but hadn't found time in between suffering Billy's latest pranks, answering every call from Mirage about his baby sister, dealing with Fred and Firestar being together, sending the Bugs to spy on Alexis when she took her days off and every other thing that could cause him misery. With this info, he might find a way of dealing with the little crank shafts much better.

But, back to the subject at hand…

"I wanted to see you," Sentinel answered truthfully, finally turning to the femme, "There's this rumor going around my camp that says you and Optimus are experiencing trouble in paradise."

That certainly got Elita One's attention. Her helm thrust up from against her chair to look menacingly at the blue mech. For someone that she really, honestly loathed, he certainly knew how to get under her armor by just saying the exact opposite of what a wiser being would say. He wasn't giving her the look he gave to every other femme, usually a mix between a perverted grin and smugness, but simply looking on, like he actually cared how this rumor affected her.

The femme wasn't sure if she liked it.

"I'm fine," Elita said assuredly, "It'll work itself out. We'll come back to each other like we always do."

"We? You mean you're not going to go to him?"

"I… That's none of your concern!" She replied, spinning in the chair and facing back to the file that Sideswipe had written, most of it focusing on games he'd learned on the blue planet, the blue hacker's favorite being 'tag' that seemed simple enough, if not a little pointless.

Sentinel waited until she was fully turned before a frown formed on his face plates. That really wasn't the answer he'd expected. 'Concern' was usually filled in by 'Business' which sounded more appropriate when you thought about it. Did that mean she didn't want him to worry or something?

'_Personal Note: Get one of the femmes in the camp to explain this new development.'_

  
**I Can't do This All Over Again!:**

Megatron could really feel the wind screaming past his audios as he descended to the forest floor from that disgustingly organic tree that put the ones back on Earth to shame. Some of the branches were nice enough to give way when he bounced off of them, but some were stubborn and stood rigid as he hit them, rolled off and hit more as he neared the ground, three of his soldiers looking on and sympathetic to his pain.

Oddly, hitting the deep purple plant life that made up the area below the tree didn't hurt nearly as much as the Lord of Destruction thought it would. The ground was soft and seemed to sink when he collided, even going so far as to make little burbly noises as Megatron clutched the rim of the obvious hole he'd made and hauled himself up. Wheeljack, Shockwave and Cyclonus still watched on, the two of them who had jaws had them hanging slack in astonishment that their great leader was still in one piece. The third actually burst into action in a panicked frenzy.

"Oh, Lord Megatron! Are you alright, sir?! Nothing's broken or disabled, is it," Shockwave asked, assisting the much larger mech to his feet, but swiftly letting go when Megatron looked more annoyed at his assistance than grateful.

"I'm fine!" Megatron shouted, surprising them all by quickly swiping the foliage that had clung to him off his body and turning to Cyclonus with a look that was bordering on what they all assumed the Great Destroyer might look like when he took their Sparks from their chambers, "I am, however, wondering why I listened to the Base Idiot when he said he knew where to find Prime. On what grounds did you have to suggest Optimus was on this Primus forsaken speck in the universe, again?"

The said 'Base Idiot' twiddled his digits a little under the scrutiny of his now evidently homicidal leader, but hazarded an answer, "Well… Ambulance-boy said this was where he was and he's pretty certain that your visit to Prime might help out with his depression, and Red Alert's never really lied to me before, so… yeah, that's all."

Megatron wanted to hit Cyclonus so badly, but resisted, turned and started to march in the direction he'd been heading before that horrible tree limb broke under his weight. Primus help Cyclonus if he was wrong about this. Megatron was already risking his reputation by searching out his mortal enemy in his time of need, he really didn't need to go through this awful negative copy of planet Earth for nothing.

**Dangerous and Moving:**

"Sentinel, you remember Omega Supreme?"

"How could I forget," Sentinel answered sarcastically, looking up at the giant of an Autobot that stood rigid, Scavenger grinning at the way Omega looked down disdainfully at the blue plow. Waiting for Optimus, Elita, the Aerialbots and Sentinel's cadets certainly wouldn't be boring, if Scavenger remembered correctly, these two hated each other in that passive aggressive way the Autobots loved so much.

"What's he doing here, anyway?" Sentinel asked the bulldozer, turning from Omega to look at the fence line of the camp. He was really getting irked. Rad should have had the groundlings in from Velocitron an hour ago and he still wasn't sure how long it would take Alexis and Firestar to pick up Moonracer if the blue-green femme's brother acted like he usually did when she left his side. Optimus and Elita would arrive any minute, though, so there would be less chance of Omega stepping on him if Sentinel focused on his worry and Scavenger.

"He's waiting for the Aerialbots. They all agreed to meet him here after their latest mission was finished, since this is the closest Autobot camp for miles and they'll be too tired to carry on tonight," The old warrior explained, that creepy smirk working over his lips at the look Sentinel was giving him. Incredulous.

"Why didn't anyone tell me about this?! I don't have any room here for those flyers and my charges need to recharge as well!"

Scavenger made to answer, but Omega suddenly started moving, stepping right over the two mechs below him and over to the fence with ease, "They're here," He said, pausing as the gate to the camp opened, Optimus Prime driving right through and Elita, Arcee, Chromia, Rad and the other mech cadets, Hot Shot, Red Alert and just behind them, riding the winds, the Aerialbots and if Sentinel was not mistaken, Jetfire and the ex-'Con Starscream. The blue plow clutched his head in his servos, giving a more than adequate moan considering the situation. He hadn't expected this many 'Bots to come in, he'd expected his charges and the unhappy leaders, not a circus. He might have to clear the training room just to give them a place to recharge…

"Holy shoot!" Sentinel heard Billy cry out, transforming out of alt. mode and scurrying around Omega's stabilizing servos like a Mini-con would an average mech, "What were you doing while we were in Velocitron, pulling a Dr. Frankenstein?"

Scavenger gave a snort of laughter, quickly recovering as Sentinel gave him a dirty look, stomping over to Optimus to possibly give him a piece of his mind. Nah…

"Optimus, sir. How was the trip here, any Decepticon problems?" Sentinel asked politely, still keeping an eye on his cadets as they all transformed and greeted Omega to the base, the giant surprised at how they didn't seem just a little bit afraid of him like most Autobots when they first encountered something so large. He obviously didn't realize that after meeting Tidal Wave for the first time there was very little that could scare them anymore.

Jetfire and Starscream landed in perfect unison behind the commander giving Sentinel a shock when they each gave a little nod his way and made for the wash wracks, muttering sweet nothing in each others' audios. Optimus didn't seem to mind, "No problems at all. Well, except the usual between me and Elita, but other than that, nothing at all. I see you've been working well with the cadets."

Sentinel warmed up at the tiny amount of praise he seemed to receive from his commander. After the last time he visited to give him a long and terrifying speech about mech/femme equality, this was more than welcome. "Yes, sir. They've all been getting on rather well in the last month. Especially the femmes, they haven't attempted to assassinate me lately, which is good… You didn't see them on your way here, per chance?"

Optimus raised an optic ridge at the ever-so-slightly shorter mech, amusement peaking out of his usually more serious voice, "Worried about them, Sentinel?"

"No! No, no, no," Sentinel rebuked quickly, "It's just they haven't called in an hour and they're my only flyers and I'm wondering if Mirage held them up fussing over Moonracer. Or, you know, Alexis and Firestar beat one of the Alphas into stasis and they're on their way to the stockades…"

"So, you are worried about them," Elita spoke up from behind him, moving to stand by Optimus, but stopping short and settling for staying beside the plow.

**Mechs in Trees:**

"Demolisher!"

The still half-in-recharge tank couldn't help the smile that spread over his lips, unseen by Blackout as his partner's helm was face down on his berth and listening to that sweet morning alarm that was the voice of that antler headed Shockwave. It would be wonderful if he could wake up to that sound every morning but impossible, seeing as the slightly taller mech was usually still reviewing data this time of the morning, waste deep in intelligence (if they could even be categorized under the word) reports. However, this day, Shockwave had gotten a little surprise and Demolisher was more than happy to wake up an hour early to enjoy it.

Letting Blackout hop off of his back, the tank stretched out on the berth, feeling all of his joints give a small squeal, and rolled off and onto his treaded peds. Blackout gave him a worried little beep, to which Demolisher simply continued to grin. Two seconds later, pounding was administered to his door and followed swiftly by Shockwave's aristocratic, if not currently high-strung, voice.

"Demolisher, you slagger!" More pounding and a few kicks, if the 'Con in question wasn't mistaken, "Open this door, I know you're in there!"

Getting up before the one red optic endowed intelligence officer could further assault his only block from the outside hall, Demolisher opened the door, still grinning, to see Shockwave with Scorponok in his other arm, the one that wasn't hesitating to retract so it could slam into the tank's face, the little parasite still sporting the wire marks he'd been delivered from Autobot territory a few weeks ago with and what looked like planet Aztac's tree leaves sticking to his pinchers and tail. Scorponok didn't seem to mind, but his master…

"What has your Mini-con done to Scorponok?!" Shockwave demanded, trying to move further into the room so he could squish the little tracker. The one who was presently hiding under the desk with its laser gun clutched to his chest and trying not to laugh or cry at the way things sounded.

Demolisher blocked the door, arms crossed and looked over Scorponok with even more interest, "Looks like Blackout gave your pet some camouflage. Isn't that right, little guy?"

Scorponok chirped happily up at the tank, not seeming to notice how Shockwave shuddered in anger, the feeling of the leaves brushing over his torso leaving him disgusted and eager to go to the wash wracks as soon as he was done taking out his anger on the tank. Who still looked too amused for Shockwave's tastes. Did nothing phase this mech?!

"Why is this even a problem," Demolisher asked, "If the little pest doesn't care, then why do you?"

"Because, if you don't remember, I already had to go through this with him a week ago with that stupid pink dye, and the week before _that_ with the rubber undercarriage that prevented him getting traction while burrowing, and the week before _that_ with those cuts he got in those tunnels and that wretched Swindle. I have had _enough_ of this prank war going on with the Mini-cons and the pets! I want you to get them to stop or you will be cleaning up their messes, starting with this!" And here Shockwave shoved Scorponok right into Demolisher's arms, some of the leaves sticking right onto the yellow tank as a result, and marched off to get a wash. This left Demolisher alone with the metallic scorpion clicking away in what may have been calls of apology to the antlered intelligence mech.

**You Don't Know Me, You Don't Even Care:**

Starscream was not easily accepted into the Autobots, to say the least. Many of the higher officers didn't trust a move he made for the first week he was among them. In fact, the first sign of trouble and a minibot by the name of Cliffjumper had immediately accused the red Seeker of supplying information to the enemy. Never mind that nobody had even told him the combination to his room and he'd only been with Jetfire the whole seven days.

Oddly, though, Hot Shot had been in the room and rejected Cliffjumper's accusations, telling the small red 'Bot that if he didn't have proof that he'd better keep, and these were his own words, not Starscream's, 'his trenchant mouth shut.' Everyone in the room had been stunned but thanks to that little display nobody had made further remarks or barbs at the Seeker. However, when Starscream went to thank the yellow mech Hot Shot claimed that it was nothing.

A month after that, he went to see the Earthian younglings on orders from Optimus. Of course, when he got there he was disappointed to find them gone on a mission and nobody but Sentinel in all his obnoxious glory and the yellow and black mech that Starscream recalled being named after an insect from his favorite planet. Sentinel ordered the bug to stay with Starscream while the tall mech waited for the post-humans and left to go attend to one of Bluestreak's latest accidents involving the energon in the storage hanger.

"So," The yellow one started up conversation, surprising Starscream a little, "You're Starscream?"

"…Yes."

"The post-humans told me about you. They said you and the leader of our air force are an item and you were the first Decepticon they knew they could trust. You're quite the subject of gossip around here."

He was? That didn't sound right, somehow he always thought that at least one of the kids would have a problem with him and say something to that affect, "That's nice to know…. Um, what's your designation?"

"Bumblebee. It's nice to finally meet you."

"It's," Starscream was trying to find something to say, but finding it rather difficult since he was so uncomfortable and confused. Back on base most 'Bots loathed the very core of him, but step one foot in this training camp and he's treated very nicely to a bright opticed pipsqueak of trainee who was expecting him to answer back, "Nice to meet you… too?"

**Cuddly as a Cactus, Charming as an Eel:**

Slipstream moved through the virtual jungle of the night club's floor like a shadow or a sliver of light, the target in her sights and no sign of the enemy. Her target was alone, had downed half a cube of high-grade and she was ready to complete this ridiculous job, a room in the back and the key in her hand as proof.

Internally, she wasn't looking forward to what the job entailed, but she hadn't been in berth with anyone in a very long time, so this may just have some added benefits. She just hoped she wouldn't have to do all the work. Granted, a mech Demolisher's size wouldn't likely be a light-weight or one to miss out on scoring a femme as positively radiant as Slipstream, if she did say so herself.

With her little self-help spiel finished, Slipstream took the empty barstool beside the tank and ordered a small cube of ultra-grade. Demolisher glanced at her, then her seat, then turned back to stare at the entrance to the club.

A pouty little frown slithered onto the lithe Seeker's lips. That usually wasn't the reaction she got when she sat down at bars, usually the mech she'd deemed worthy to be in her presence would immediately start the little dance that was hitting on her and top off her drink. This sort of behavior wasn't right. It was actually a little rude, in Slipstream's opinion.

"Waiting for your date?" The dark purple and light blue Seeker femme asked, leaning in what many would consider a seductive manner towards the tank who now blinked his odd green optics at her.

"Er, no. Just a friend. And what's a fetching creature such as yourself doing alone here?" Demolisher asked, a little smile directed her way. He really hadn't expected to be made a move on so early in the night when most of the femmes were dancing instead of gargling with high-grade. This was a change, but change is good.

"Oh, I'm afraid I've been stood up," Best lie for the situation, "All of my friends went home early, so I'm stuck here alone."

"That's a shame," The mostly yellow tank responded, sympathetic. Good, if he was sympathetic, she wouldn't have to try too hard, "If you'd like some company, me and my friend will be here for a few hours and we'd be happy include you in our night."

Maybe not….

"That's very sweet of you," Slipstream almost purred, tapping her servo atop his much bigger one as seductively as she could, "I hope your friend won't mind. He a soldier or an intelligence officer or something?"

"Actually…" Demolisher fidgeted a little. What was the best way to say he was actually meeting an enemy of his faction even though it was their day off and they never said anything that could possibly be used against their respective factions?

Before he got a chance to continue his sentence, he heard a very distinctive set of footsteps and spun on his stool, greeted by the sight he'd been waiting for in the last hour.

"Hey, Demolisher. Sorry I'm late," Alexis greeted, taking the seat on the other side of the tank. She obviously noticed Slipstream looking at her, but didn't make any remark about it. She really didn't want to get in a fight at this particular neutral bar, it was the only one she could find that served low-grade and she didn't want to go looking for another that did.

"Hello, light of my life," Demolisher responded, not noticing the sour look on Slipstream's face as he turned back in his seat so he could see both femmes in his peripheral vision, also giving them a perfect view of each other if they bent forward enough, "Don't be sorry, I had company. My dear," He turned from Alexis to Slipstream, motioning with his servo as he did so, "This young lady is the friend I told you about. An exotic little absinth fairy by the designation of Alexis. Alexis, this scrumptious woman of my very pleasant few minutes is…. I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name."

"Slipstream," The Decepticon Seeker supplied, her cheeks lighting up at the compliment he'd bestowed upon her in the introductions. Nobody she could remember had ever called her 'scrumptious' without them being in the berth. That wasn't her primary concern, though. Her main concern was that the file that Thrust had given her for this ridiculous mission had information on this particular femme. If Slipstream remembered everything, she had to watch her words and be sure not to set this green freak-job off or she'd be at risk of missing a wing.

The other femme didn't seem to be showing any signs of irritation, though. She actually smiled and nodded at Slipstream, thereafter taking a sip from the low-grade the bartender had given her, "I haven't seen you around here before. Just get on planet?"

Slipstream didn't think it would be this easy to get on the teal optic femme's good side. Hmm, odd, "Yes, actually. I didn't think Autobots knew which Decepticons were on planet, though."

Demolisher gave a small chuckle at how those words made the much smaller femme go a little rigid, "Slipstream you have just met the only Autobot who's even interested in what Decepticons are hanging around. Lexi here pays attention to everything I say and I listen to everything she says. Heck of a way to know who's who and what gossip's right."

"Funny, though," Alexis put in, leaning onto the countertop, "Demolisher never mentioned you before."

Slipstream held back her sudden feelings of being caught in her act. Thrust may have been right to worry about these two, "Well, I was actually here to meet a blind date one of my superiors recommended. The mech never showed and Demolisher here offered me a reprieve from being alone tonight."

Alexis gave a wicked little smile at that, "Is that a polite way to say you were hitting on him?"

The tank in between them choked on the energon he was swallowing. The looks that were being sent between both the femmes could possibly melt the armor of Megatron, given the right amount of time and Demolisher found that being caught in between wasn't going to end well for him.

It was kinda hot, though.

**Trick or Treat:**

"Oh Primus! Rad, wake up! Are you alright?"

His processors just vaguely registering the voice calling from up above the still crumpled and dazed sports car, Rad blinked his optics. He felt kind of like he had when he thought there was an extra step on a staircase and his mind had to catch up when his foot hit dead space, displaced and confused.

"That was totally awesome," He breathed, smiling up at Arcee as she allowed a relieved smile to pass over her faceplates. Before she came back to her senses and started the yelling from her position on the balcony the younger 'Bot had fallen from,

"You scared the Pit out of me! What was that supposed to accomplish?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"No," Rad muttered, pulling himself up, very pleased to find his hands and legs weren't broken and the rest of him perfectly fine, "I just didn't think the railing would give away that easy…"

Arcee huffed and made her way down the staircase that attached to the balcony, grumbling about mechs and their idiocy around femmes or worse, each other. Like sparklings on an eternal energon goodies high.

"What were you even doing, walking atop the railing like that?"

"Grabbing this," Rad explained, unfolding his servos from the cupped position they'd been in since the fall and showed the pink and white femme what he'd intended to give her. Arcee gave a little breath of astonishment at what he held. It was a perfectly formed, pink and red crystarose, the beauty of it astounding to her glad optics. She hadn't seen something so pretty on Cybertron in a long time and was finding her annoyance at Rad's stupidity slipping away to be replaced by gratitude as he placed the source of magnificence in her own servos.

"This is for you," The young mech said. He hadn't expected to find a way to thank the intelligence officer before today for her taking him out for Rust Sticks the week before. Now that he had, he found the fall was worth it.

**Secrets Don't Survive for Long:**

Still cringing under his commander's gaze, Starscream decided that maybe if he gave his answer to Skyfire quickly, his death or punishment would come just as quickly and either leave him a very handsome shell or a horribly disfigured invalid.

"The flyer that saved your sparklings was a femme by the designation of Alexis."

Skyfire, sweet as any Decepticon could ever hope to be, had absolutely no idea who the red Seeker was talking about. Megatron, on the other servo, looked liked the inside of his helm had exploded and wiped his hard-drive. Or, at least the part that controlled facial reactions. The horned mech's lips were twitching along with his left optic and when Starscream and Demolisher saw how his shoulder struts raised and his servos tightened into fists they knew they should probably be happy that he was restraining himself. As did Thrust, who, wisely, took one giant step backwards in as a respectful way as he could without setting the tyrant off.

"So, do you know where I can find this Alexis?" Skyfire inquired, Greyshift finally nodding into recharge with his brothers, even though he was looking directly at the Decepticon leader's face, twisting up even worse at Skyfire's words. Greyshift found it kind of funny and it was nice to go into recharge with happy thoughts, his mech creator and his brothers safe.

"**No**!" Both Demolisher and Starscream practically yelled, thinking of anything they could to lead the white jet off of this train of conversation.

"No," Starscream repeated, fake coughing into his servo, "Uh, she's not around and really she, uh…"

"Isn't the nicest of femmes," Demolisher put in helpfully, completely ignoring the look that spoke volumes that Thrust directed at them, the glitch could stick it up his tailpipe for all the tank cared, "It would probably be more trouble than it's worth to say thank you to her."

"Oh, it would be no trouble at all," Skyfire said, still unable to notice how he was digging the two mechs' graves as he coaxed for more information, "And besides, I now owe this femme a favor. I'm in her debt and I want her to know that."

"Skyfire," Megatron finally spoke, allowing the white mech to turn and witness the most terrifying fake smile ever witnessed by anyone in the Decepticon army, complete with the fake sweet tone of voice that had even Thrust resisting the impulse to get the Pit out of there before Megatron, as the post-humans put it, unleashed Hell, "I'm sorry, but my men will have to get back to you. Right now, they and I have to have a little talk, but I'll send them to see you as soon as we're done. You're dismissed."

Skyfire wanted to stay, but the commander had a point. Besides, his little ones were completely exhausted and he needed to take them to his quarters so he could also recharge, a thing he'd been unable to do since news of their being missing was confirmed. He would get back to Starscream later.

The massive white jet gave as much of a bow as he could and took his leave, Greyshift in his arms almost seeming to purr with the feeling his creator's footsteps made.

When the doors to the room were shut and none of the mechs could hear Skyfire, Megatron lost all forms of formality or kindness or even mercy and advanced on the red Seeker and yellow tank. Thrust would have been wise to get out before the tyrant remembered that he most likely had something, if only a small something, to do with this. Sadly, none of them got out or could really fight the unbridled wrath of a now out of the dark Megatron.

On the other side of the base, Starscream's brothers, Cyclonus and Tidal Wave felt a little shiver roll through their mainframes.

**Sniffles, Snuffles and Backfires**:

"Please don't come in here, I really don't want you to see me like this."

Ignoring the pleading and somewhat muffled voice of her most intriguing comrade, Arcee opened the door to the private medical room reserved strictly for the post-organics should they need them. The intelligence officer really thought that the walls were the ugliest shade of yellow ever produced, it gave off an air of claustrophobia and smelled of something bitter that spoke of diseases she couldn't pronounce with a dash of loneliness. She didn't like it and was pretty sure Rad didn't either.

The door closed much faster than she thought it would and as a result Arcee practically jumped right next to Rad's berth. She looked on at the sorry mess that was covered from helm to stabilizing servos in blankets and had to let a sympathetic smile spread over her faceplates. Even as this horrid mess, the blue sports car was just so cute.

"What is it Arcee? If you need me for a misson you are right out of luck, because as you can see, Red Alert has put me in the cootie box and Ratchet will beat me over the head with his wrenches if I leave," Rad spoke, his vocal processor sounding weird to the femme, like it was being muffled by water. Hm, considering where the post-human was from, that probably wasn't that far from the truth.

"I don't want anything," The pink femme said sweetly, taking the chair next to the berth stationed in every private room for the medics when they looked over their patients, "I just came to see you."

If Rad hadn't sneezed at the end of her explanation she probably would've leaned in to give his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. However, since he did, and the sneeze sounded like a backfire from the Pit, spraying a little motor oil with the action, she settled for giving a disturbed smile and leaned back a bit as Rad pulled a tissue from the stack Red Alert had brought him. The motor oil dripping from his nose stained the entire tissue.

"Sorry about that. The Rhino Virus is a real pain this time of year, but I should be happy I didn't get the flu again," Rad explained, wiggling deeper into the covers like a rabbit in a burrow.

Although, the sneeze was very gross and the soiled tissues covering the floor made Arcee uncomfortable, the femme decided it was worth it. Just being able to see the blue Transformer look like a sparkling made her day.


	7. What You're Looking For

Disclaimer: I don't own nothin' at all! I don't own nothin' at all, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Much thanks to all the people who reviewed and to those who gave private messages claiming to actually like my adding Slipstream. I didn't think she'd come off so well, but I guess things can turn out favorably after all.

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**High-Grade Anatomy:**

"WHERE ARE THRUST AND SLIPSTREAM?"

If Megatron was surprised by the obviously angry drunk femme from the Autobots flying into his throne room and demanding to see the town tramp and village idiot, it didn't show on his face. As a matter of fact, he'd been waiting for at least a week for the news of Thrust and Slipstream's little deal to reach this particular femme's audios. Megatron had made it a point to make sure he was there when Thrust had his own aft handed to him and Slipstream and the femme got into a "cat fight", as the post-humans called it. He had Shockwave install a camera in the room as proof.

"Hello, Alexis." The tyrant greeted pleasantly enough, giving a look towards Shockwave and privately comming him to turn on the camera, the spy immediately following the order, internally wondering why his leader hadn't shot the green flyer yet.

"Obviously you think that was a rhetorical question," Alexis said taking out her right servo, charging it with her electric energy and fired off a sort of lightning bolt to perpetuate her next words, aiming at an object to blow away as well, "WHERE" the ceiling "ARE" a window "THRUST" Cyclonus' rotors "AND" the Decepticon flag put up behind Megatron's head "SLIPSTREAM?"

"For the love of Primus," Megatron snorted, the flag being pulled from his horns after it fell from the tack holding it up by Shockwave, "Calm down and stop acting so ticked. What would Prime think if he saw you like this?"

"First of all, I AM ticked and second of all, I really don't giving a damn what Optimus might think of this right at the moment," Alexis practically yelled, sending little tremors down the lesser Decepticons' in the rooms' back struts, but only making Megatron grin more. He'd never seen one of Prime's adopted spawn drunk or very angry before, so this was a once in a life-time gift from Primus to him. As such, he was going to draw this out as long as possible without anyone raining on his parade.

Raising a servo to his comm. link he got in touch with Thrust and sent a message for him and Slipstream to be in the throne room in the next five minutes. When the line disconnected he also sent a message for Demolisher to stay _away_ from the throne room for the next five or so hours and go on scout patrol with Wheeljack, hanging up before the tank could question his first set of orders.

Once done with that, he turned back to the still angry as anything femme, "Thrust and Slipstream will be here in exactly four minutes and fourteen seconds. So, any particular reason you're here, alone and obviously intoxicated?"

**Breath Again:**

Oh, Scorponok decided that once he got back to the base, he'd never go outside again. In fact, he might never leave his soft, fluffy berth Shockwave had given him years ago and the scavenger had actually managed to keep intact, along with the blanket Scorponok was going to slip under as soon as possible.

Behind the now slightly chipper scavenger, Swindle trudged along, some of the mud from the tunnels behind them causing him go slower than he would have liked. Leave it to Sureshock to find the half-dead moron and send Swindle as an escort to keep said moron from passing out on the way back home, and without even a good-bye kiss! The overconfident, self-serving, smokin'--

"Damnit, Scorponok, slow down!" Swindle called, stopping to pound one of his peds on the ground as hard as he could and dislodge the mud flecks.

"_Can't stop! Must see Shockwave, must get to berth and cuddle!"_ Scorponok called back, legs and pinchers moving twice as fast in anticipation and leaving the red Mini-con in the dust, cursing a long string of words the digging parasite had no understanding of.

**Host of the Future:**

"Prowl, please, I'm begging, don't make me go back to that camp! I can't do it again, especially with these kinds of questions! Alexis might beat me over the head with Sentinel Prime for asking this, Moonracer probably hasn't even begun anything that could lead to getting sparklings yet and Firestar is Flareup's sister, I don't want that femme riding me for reviewing her sibling on this!"

Despite the pleadings from Arcee, the stoic officer continued to look over the datapads she'd brought in, never once looking up at her puppy dog optics to acknowledge her try for sympathy, "Arcee, this is not a request, it is an order. Optimus Prime and his right hand men have no time to give me all the answers and I need an up-dated census on the femmes of the training camps anyway. Stop complaining and just do it."

Arcee allowed her dentals to grind together a moment and a dark look to settle over her face before speaking up again, a small silver lining forming along this ebony cloud, "Can I possibly bring an aid, someone who will keep these femmes from trying to offline me?"

Prowl's intakes cycled once before he nodded, "You can take Chromia She's not involved in any missions at the moment. Just allow her to leave when Ironhide calls her up or you'll be stuck with four femmes who don't really like you. You're dismissed."

The pink intelligence officer resisted the urge to leave with a snide remark, but held off. Prowl was a stoic glitch, but she didn't want to make him mad. Anyway, Chromia was a strong and scary femme, but Arcee appreciated having someone watch her front, back and sides.

…Now if only she could find someone to ask these stupid questions.

**What You're Looking For:**

The water rivulets dripped into the bucket as Wheeljack squeezed the towel in between his servos, careful to make sure it wasn't too soggy but not dry either. He didn't know why he even bothered, the yellow 'Bot on Wheeljack's berth was completely unconscious and was in excruciating pain, but it was simply the way he was.

"You stupid, foolish mech…" Wheeljack growled, laying the cloth on Hot Shot's grey optic band, some of the water washing away the coat of soot that had clung to him even when the slightly taller mech had dragged him from that flaming Pit that reminded Wheeljack so much of the one he'd been in so long ago.

The black and gold Decepticon hadn't expected to find anyone still alive in that fire that Megatron had ordered him to scout through, in fact, he hadn't expected to find anything more than some smoking shells of the very dead. And yet, he'd found Hot Shot, melting and buried in rubble with mechfluid boiling under him. At first Wheeljack had thought his optic sensors were playing tricks on him, but then he'd kicked the 'apparition', it had been solid, Hot Shot's optics had lit up for a split second to look directly at the mech standing over him and then gone completely still.

'_Oh, how typical,_' Wheeljack thought bitterly, grabbing another cloth to dunk in the bucket of water so he could try and scrub off the layer of grunge, '_I've been waiting years to get a fitting form of revenge and yet, when the time came, I couldn't let it happen_.'

A sardonic smirk came to Wheeljack's face as he scrubbed hard against Hot Shot's stained yellow paintjob, still careful as he had been in Cadet training with the injuries his old friend had sustained in the fire. It was funny, in a really morbid way, how the mech he'd thought had abandoned him had much worse injuries then Wheeljack himself had in his own fire. True, both of them had been crushed under rubble, but Wheeljack had at least been able to move away from the flames and see all around. The way he'd found Hot Shot…

Maybe this was Primus' way of getting Wheeljack to just stop being angry at the 'Bot?

The gold and black Decepticon was so caught up in what was going on in his head that he didn't notice how Hot Shot seized a little when the wet cloth ran over a particularly thinned area of armor, where the fire had eaten through metal and melted sensitive wiring. The smaller mech was still unconscious, but his frame knocked up and down on the berth twice before Wheeljack took the cloth from the injury and pressed Hot Shot down with both servos. He held his old friend down as best he could, but a little tremor ran through Hot Shot again and Wheeljack felt like he was going to cry. His processor finally registered that his old friend, the one who'd trained him, might be dying. Holding him down, Wheeljack could actually see every burned wire, melted plate and hole that was made in that recreation of the nightmares that constantly haunted his recharge cycles.

It occurred to Wheeljack as Hot Shot stopped moving for the moment, that he wasn't mad at the Autobot anymore. Now he was just worried…

**5 Minutes In the Closet:**

"So," Bumblebee began, leaning against the storage room's far wall, the green bug to his front locking it and trying to block out the sounds of the rest of their unit giving little chuckles and wolf-whistles, "What exactly are we supposed to do now?"

The green hybrid turned from the door and back to the yellow 'Bot, a sort of perverted grin on his lips, "Well, we could try out this little game. It sounds interesting enough and it might be fun."

One of Bumblebee's optic ridges lifted, "Fun in the next four minutes, thirty seconds and counting? Really, Wasp, not even you could—gack!"

Bumblebee's words were left to the air as Wasp sort of tackled him and started laying energy bursts on the black striped mech's lips and neck, servos holding Bee's wrists above his head and enjoying what time they had. He'd _begged_ the post-humans to set this up for this exact purpose and was _not_ going to waste it.

Apparently, neither was Bumblebee as he started to react and join in, internal fans clicking on and filling the small room with a soothing, wonderful sound. The mechs sort of tuned out the noises from outside that their party outside was making along the lines of laughing.

**Gitty On Up:**

"_Love once more has let me down, Making this too easy_…"

The little musical quote Moonracer often heard Alexis mutter around bondmates that passed the camp slid easily off of the Towers femme's glossa. She didn't understand what the phrase meant a few months ago, but now she comprehended all too well.

Oh, what the femme wouldn't give to get out of the Alphas area code. She hadn't seen any of her unit except Sentinel in the last three days and her brother was driving her insane with the preparations for her arranged bonding ceremony. Firestar had left Moonracer messages via Sentinel, as had some of the post-organics and the bugs, their sergeant happy to rid himself of the pile of datapads every visit, but it wasn't enough.

She didn't want to be in Mirage's home. It was so gloomy and stoic and lifeless that it scared Moonracer a little. Back at the camp everything was so full of vibrancy and excitement and felt really lived in, the way a home should feel. Her brother's home was nothing like that, despite his constant visits through the day to check on her, everything, including her, felt empty.

Moving from the table she'd had breakfast at, alone, Moonracer walked to the window to see the sky line and the random flyer to pass the time and relieve some of her boredom.

Opening the curtain, Moonracer almost screamed when visage of a certain deep purple and black Seeker became known to her optics, a ridiculous grin on his face and the rest of him sort of floating upside down. Moonracer didn't scream, but she did manage a gleaming smile as Skywarp righted himself with a backwards spin, "Hey pretty lady, mind if I come inside?"

"'Warp, what are you doing here?" The small femme asked, pulling on the latch that opened the door to the balcony, Skywarp landing in less than the regal fashion all the Alpha flyers seemed to display whenever they landed. It was charming in a rugged, Decepticon sort of way.

"Well, two little cyber-birdies told me to haul my aft over here before you exploded from sheer boredom. So here I am," Skywarp explained, helm twisting to get a better look at his new sort-of friend's current abode. The last time he'd been in a home this size was Megatron's private chambers and that was an accident caused by him crashing through three very thin walls.

Moonracer didn't want to look a gift computer in the hard drive, but the wording there caused her curiosity to rear its head, "Cyber-birdies? Who do you mean?"

"Your fellow femmes, of course," The Seeker explained, patting the Towers femme on the head like a puppy or even Ravage when he's in the right mood, "Alexis got a hold of me through various members of my faction who shall remain nameless on penalty of death, and Firestar, who tackled me, strapped me down in one of your bases' storage rooms and threatened to cut off my spike if I didn't somehow get you to smile on this trip. Or, you know, take you back to boot camp. Whatever's good for you."

Moonracer blinked. Moonracer smiled. And then Moonracer did something so spontaneous that Skywarp hadn't seen it coming for the life of him. She burst out laughing and jumped onto his back, her tiny frame weighing the equivalent to a feather for the tall Decepticon even as her arms settled around his neck to keep her grip on him, "Take me home, ye noble stallion!"

"My lady!" Skywarp responded, grinning like some lone nut, but happily following her request.


	8. Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Anything at all.

* * *

**Girls Just Want to Have Fun- Cindy Lauper:**

"Wait, wait, wait!"

Pausing from his advances, Megatron let a frown settle on his features as Prime managed to clamber further up the back of his chair, legs dangling off the edge of it and backside pressed to the wall like a frightened cat being confronted by another of its kind in its heat cycle. If anything, it only made Megatron want Optimus more.

"What? What's wrong now?"

Trying to compose himself, the blue semi cleared his vocal unit with a small cough and tried to explain to the tank just why he couldn't do anything with him at the moment. It wasn't that he didn't want to do anything with Megatron, it's just that he was responsible and really wanted to wait for just a little longer. Plus…

"My divorce isn't final yet," Optimus explained, "Elita would feel everything that we might do and I really don't want that to happen."

The utter truth of that fact hit Megatron rather painfully. The horned mech gave a disappointed groan at the thought of the femme feeling one side of the connection she and Optimus still shared. He didn't want that either, especially if she barged in and interrupted or, Primus forbid, made it known to the whole of Cybertron what was happening between the two leaders because of her slack-jawed, shrieking audio processor.

The larger of the two mechs sat sadly back in his chair, servos cupping his face to cover up his show of irritation of the circumstances. Optimus, for his part, slowly slid off the back of his chair and leaned in near Megatron to pat him sympathetically on the shoulder like the sexual advancements had never happened. It was almost like they were younglings again.

"Out of curiosity," Megatron spoke again, helm still held in his servos, "When _is_ your divorce final?"

Optimus answered as pleasantly as he could, even going so far as to rub the other mech's horns, "In about two more weeks."

Megatron practically growled at the thought. Two weeks? Two weeks waiting to get to do things Optimus had only ever read about back on Earth? Two weeks trying to stave off the urge to just pounce on the blue mech like a youngling?

Megatron dropped his servos and rested his forehelm on Optimus' knee strut. It looked so cute, Optimus couldn't possibly try and shove him off.

**Priceless Antique:**

Skywarp was made aware of the green femme from Earth when he saw her flying dangerously close to the Decepticon base stationed on planet Aztac. He had found her pretty and coy and he had almost immediately gone after her if not for Starscream.

Skywarp's oldest brother, as much as he loved him, had managed to tackle the purple Seeker in mid-air and send them both crashing into the waves below, causing Skywarp to receive enough dents for him to start splashing at him childishly and not stop until they went back into the base. The femme had spotted the two and flew away before the darker Seeker even got the chance to talk to her.

The brothers swam through the water and the moment both we're inside the airlock, Skywarp started bitching.

"Screamer, you'd better have one Pit of a good explanation as to why you physically assaulted me to keep me away from that gorgeous creature! I haven't scored in months, you know I need this!"

Starscream had a look somewhere between mild annoyance and absolute horror as he stared at his brother. The thought of slapping the idiot up-side the head crossed his processors, but he'd only come back to Cybertron a few months ago and didn't want to face as many months with Skywarp sending him revenge pranks. He'd just tell him something that would keep the teleporter away from Alexis and hopefully that would be the end of it.

"You can't do anything with her, 'Warp," Starscream sighed, "She's a techno-organic and Prime's adoptive daughter. She's like a museum. She's very cold and very beautiful and you're not allowed to touch her."

"…And?" Skywarp coaxed, arms crossed childishly. Starscream made an excellent point with the whole Prime thing, but he could do worse. And the techno-organic thing? It wouldn't even make his top ten on the worst things he'd ever done. This dry-spell was killing him, who cared about little things like what Starscream mentioned?

Starscream did slap Skywarp up the head this time, "Alexis is younger than a sparkling, you crank-shaft! She has four brothers who will rip you to pieces and not to mention her own personal opinion towards mechs! She'd laugh in your face or electrocute you, do you really want to deal with that?"

A leer crossed the teleporter's faceplate like the biggest pervert ever created, "I'm good with kinky."

**Welcome to the World:**

Fred ignored Sentinel as the blue mech cringed with the femme giving her final scream and final push at the same time. The Jeep's big servos happily accepted the little squirming bundle of a newborn, static lacing its shrieks at its new environment.

"Well, congratulations," Fred said with a wide grin, the cloth he usually used for his hood being used to clean up the little sparkling, then used to wrap it up as the post-human handed it to the now also smiling femme, "You now have a healthy little sparkling."

The femme cried saline from her optics in nothing short of pure joy as she accepted her newborn. Sentinel was happy to accept back his now very crushed servo and get up from his position behind the femme so he could get out of the puddle she'd excreted to produce the whining sparkling. So help him, once he got back to base the sergeant was going to take a long, piping hot shower.

"Thank you so much," The femme, Override, spoke, the tiny sparkling being cradled to her like the most precious thing ever, "I don't know what I would have done if I was here alone."

"Not crush my servo, that's for sure—OW!" Sentinel started, Fred having slammed his right ped on his sergeant's own ped, discreet as ever.

"It was no trouble at all," Fred put in kindly. He knew he'd likely get disciplined for assaulting Sentinel's ped, but at least the femme hadn't heard the jack-ass say something stupid, "So, is it a femme or a mech?"

The pink leader of the Speed Planet gave her offspring a look over and grinned back up at the black post-human with obvious pride, "A femme!"

Fred gave a joyful laugh at the statement, Sentinel just giving a disturbed look at both of them. He didn't get what the big deal was about giving birth to one gender or another. A Transformer was a Transformer, no matter the gender, but to each his own.

**His Girl Friday:**

Strong, but lithe arms circled Moonracer in greeting as the blue-green femme was deposited by Skywarp. She'd never been hugged by her comrades before and wasn't too fast to react when Firestar, the minibots and some of the post-organics pounced on her, but when her processors kicked back in, she immediately reciprocated.

"Oh, Moonie!" Firestar squealed in happiness, "We didn't think we'd get to see you again before your bonding ceremony!"

"Yeah," Carlos put in, left arm patting the top of the Towers femme affectionately, "Your brother wouldn't return our calls and only sent us the invitations."

Moonracer felt embarrassed heat pool into her cheeks at the Spaniard's words. She knew her brother had been erasing their messages for a while, but she couldn't very well say anything when he was gone for most of the day with the rest of their snobbish neighbors discussing her soon-to-be ceremony.

"I'm so sorry. I should have tried harder to speak with you."

"That's okay," Bumblebee said gently, "You're here now and that's what counts. And anyway, one way or another, you are going to stay here until that ceremony. We'll have plenty of time to catch up."

Mooonracer felt the smile on her face turn to a curious frown at the yellow sub-compact's words.

"How's that? My brother will be really mad when he finds that I'm gone from his home and will rip someone's head off by the time he finds out I was brought back here, by a Decepticon no less. No offence Skywarp."

"None taken," Skywarp said, enjoying the cube of High-grade Bluestreak had smuggled from Sentinel's room per Billy's order. The talkative sniper had handed it to the Seeker and quickly rushed behind Fred, still not entirely sure why the purple flyer wasn't shooting any of them yet. Or why everyone was so relaxed around him.

Firestar smiled almost wickedly at her dear friend, "Oh, my darling, have you so little faith in our abilities?"

"No! No, I never said that!" Moonracer responded, "I'm just a little confused."

Fred stepped in for the red femme, lifting Moonracer up and setting her next to the table Skywarp was sitting at like she was a stuffed toy from back home. She looked somewhere near scandalized at the treatment, but kept her mouth shut as Skywarp rested his left servo soothingly on her shoulder so her friends could explain. It was a nice image, really.

"Well," Fred began, his friendly tone easing her into a less rigid position in her seat, "As we speak, Billy, Alexis and Rad are having a little chat with Sentinel about your arrangement with Mirage. If we're very lucky, Billy's fat Nevada mouth will keep you here until such a time as your marriage."

"And if he can't?"

Fred brought up his left servo and raised two fingers, looking rather like rabbit ears the way they wiggled before the femme, her blue optics following them attentively, "That's why we have Rad and Alexis. Billy has that mouth of his to get what he wants, but if he screws up, Rad has a long list of connections, starting with Optimus himself and a few dozen higher-ups. If it comes down to it, Rad can find a way for you to stay here. Hopefully, right down to the day you have to be at that alter."

Moonracer felt her spark swell with joy at the black jeep's words. Oh, it would be so absolutely wonderful if she didn't have to go back to her brother's home! But, still, there was some residue of doubt.

"But, what if neither of them can help me stay?"

Fred's optic ridge rose slyly and behind him, though nobody could see it, Carlos gave a little grin at the blue-green femme.

Both of them said the exact same thing, at the exact same time, "That's for us to know and you to find out."

**Stupid Cupid:**

Holding his head in his servos in utter and absolute shame, Demolisher could feel his central processor tremble at the memories coming back to him from the night before. It was perhaps the biggest mistake of his life, and he wasn't feeling bad enough, but then there was Shockwave sitting across from him, pointing out all the reasons he'd… interfaced with Slipstream.

Ugh, it made his tank churn in nausea just thinking about it.

"You do realize this is all because you're so repressed, right?" The antlered Decepticon questioned, typing down some information on a datapad, "If you'd admit your feelings for that little pipsqueak of a Seeker from Earth, then you wouldn't have made this remarkable mistake. Who hasn't heard of Slipstream? You were even stationed with her a few times, you idiot."

In spite of the burning behind his optics, Demolisher managed a snarl at Shockwave, "I slept with Slipstream because I was overenergized! Not because I have feelings for Alexis! She's too young and anyway, Slipstream was actually kinda nice."

Shockwave's single red optic squinted at the tank. Alright, if Demolisher wanted to be in denial, in the intelligence officer's favorite spot no less, then the more elegant mech was going to have some fun.

"You're an absolute moron. You slept with Slipstream, the lying, snarky glitch, because she's the Seekerette who will touch your junk."

"No!" Demolisher denied indignantly, "No, no! She's actually really smart—"

"Like Alexis."

"And strong—"

"Like Alexis."

"And one of the most naturally beautiful femmes with a great personality—"

"Like…" Shockwave scratched the bottom of the black screen that was his faceplate, "You _think_ Alexis is."

"STOP IT!"

**Fat Nevada Mouth:**

Hot Shot, Sideswipe, Jazz, Blurr, Rad and Carlos stood with their heads leaning in just enough to watch Billy stand before Prowl in an attempt to explain away why the lot of them had been in a known Decepticon bar. On a work week. Without a higher officer in the vicinity.

Jazz had bet good money that the orange mech would crash and burn under the impenetrable scrutiny of the top intelligence officer in the Autobots. The rest wanted to see Prowl's head explode.

"So?" The upper officer coaxed, arms crossed and giving him all the appearances of one of the higher powers that most Transformers feared.

Billy just gave a little grin and started off his explanation. Or, at the very least, Prowl thought it was an explanation. Along with Jazz and Blurr in the hallway.

"Shoot," Billy began, the accent he'd heard his father use for a long stretch of his childhood pouring out of his vocalize perfectly, "I was hangin' wit' my boytoy Carlos down at th' that old drink joint them older mechs use fer scourin' wit' the ladies. When we be tryin' out our mad skills on them boom-box, some half-assed 'Con went about dissin' our Screamer for joinin' our crew an' tried knockin' back our boy righ' in front o' us. An' we thought, "Dang, that's cold." So we got's to be makin' things right. So we picked up our Earth boys an' Jazz to go set things straight out and wound up in place like some Crypts hittin' up the Bloods. Turned out fine, though, since Screamer's D to the C were there and were all up for defendin' their hommie. An' here we are. Namean?"

Carlos was biting his lip in an effort not to laugh out right at the looks passing along Prowl's face. So were Hot Shot and Sideswipe, both shaking almost painfully as laughter tried to crawl its way out of their vocalizers like a Tasmanian devil on steroids. Blurr vaguely understood the words from Billy considering he'd watched a few Primus-awful reality and R&B shows on the television, but was still finding it difficult to understand all the words, like 'hommie', 'namean' and the like.

Jazz knew for sure and absolute certain that he had just lost all of his credits when Prowl opened his mouth. Instead of words coming out, there was the sort of whining that only really came from tires, and he flat-out went into stasis and fell to the ground like a pencil that stands up for a second only to be prodded once and fall over. If the saboteur looked closely enough, he could actually see energon coming out of Prowl's audio receptors and dribbling to the ground.

"Dude," Carlos spoke up, swallowing his laughs once he walked into the room and high-fived the taller mech, "I hope you didn't ruin his processor. Optimus would be so mad."

"Nah—" Billy paused a moment, glossa clicking a few times as he tried to get his normal accent back into gear, "Nah, Nyet, Na, No, Nope. There we go. Sorry, hard to stop. Anyway, he'll be fine. That's nothing compared to when we got caught in that storage closet."

**Teardrops On My Guitar- Taylor Swift:**

Sideswipe ignored the constant pounding of Blurr's fist on his door. No matter what the much older mech said Sideswipe wouldn't bother listening. There was nothing Blurr could say that could make up for the sniper interfacing with Sunstreaker. They'd both known how much Sideswipe had admired Blurr and how long he'd been interested in him, and they'd interfaced anyway!

He'd been in his berth for the last four days and was hoping that very soon he'd either offline from exhausting his emergency energon storage or from a broken spark. Even if he wanted to open the door, which he didn't, he didn't have the power to even lift his servo and cry out. He was basically just a shell that still had remnants of consciousness and small pulses of tired energy.

It was a pathetic and admittedly a dishonorable way to die, but at the moment he didn't care.

"Sideswipe," Blurr said in a surprisingly calm voice for the first time in the last three days, when he'd started pounding on the rookie's door every other hour rather desperately, "I know you're still in there, and I know that you're out of energy. So, I'm going to count to five and if I don't hear you get up and start to at least move around, I'm breaking the door down. Understand?"

An involuntary gasp flowed through Sideswipe's throat, despite no actual sound issuing forth as a result. Blurr wouldn't…

"One…"

It went against his whole personality…

"Two…"

It went against protocol…

"Three…"

He was at least supposed to get a higher authority for an okay on this sort of thing, like Scavenger or Hot Shot or Optimus…

"Four…"

Sideswipe suddenly felt very exposed. _He didn't want Blurr to see him like this_!

"FIVE!"

**Bringing Sexy Back- Justin Timberlake:**

"Hello, hello, hellooooo…. What is a succulent little thing like you do behind enemy lines?"

The aristocratic voice that Bluestreak had never heard before sent a vibrating chill up his spinal struts as the in-training mech turned so slow it was like eternity passed by. When his optics were in range of the mech who had spoken, Bluestreak suddenly and completely regretted that he had come to the bar with the minibots and the post-organics.

They had warned him about the mech known as Shockwave that had nearly be the cause of Bumblebee nearly sending Wasp to the stockades through trickery and smooth words. He was one of Megatron's higher-ups and quite lethal. He had a tactical mind rather like Thrust and since Thrust had done away with the Autobots of planet Vector, who knew what Shockwave was capable of?

And he was standing right behind Bluestreak with two cubes of High Grade and what could have been a seductive pose with anyone else.

The phrase that Sentinel often barked at his trainees during drills ran through Bluestreak's processor. What was it again? Oh yes, 'RUN, SLAGGER, RUN!'

Spinning on his bar stool to the left, the much smaller mech leapt up and bolted in the direction of where he'd seen Billy and Carlos heading for some quality time in one of the rooms registered to be rented at the front desk when one came into the bar/club/brothel/what have you. Although, saying that he was bolting may have been a bit of a stretch when he kept getting jostled to one side of the dance floor to the other because of the other patrons. It felt like ocean waves beating a helpless beach ball. And he was the ball.

"E-excuse m-me!... Pardon m-me! St-state of e-emergency- That's my stabilizing servo! Ow! Okay, who just touched my- Hey!"

Just when a mech that Bluestreak was pretty sure could have been a train almost _stepped_ on his faceplate, a clawed servo plucked him from the chaos and he was gliding over the crowd. Gliding! Like a shirt on a clothes line, back over to the bar and back with the mech who (and nobot had bothered to tell him about this) had apparently stretched his arm all the way to grab the trainee, but otherwise was perched comfortably on his own bar stool.

Placing Bluestreak back into the stool he had previously occupied, Shockwave's one red optic turned into what the grey mech supposed was supposed to be a sort of gentle half-circle. If Bluestreak didn't know any better, he'd have thought Shockwave had tugged him out of that cluster of mechs and femmes as a show of goodwill. But that couldn't be right; Billy had described the Decepticon as a back-stabbing lowlife without an ounce of chivalry.

"Now, as I was saying," The much larger mech started, gently setting the other cube of High Grade next to Bluestreak, "What are you doing here? Aren't you underage?"

"I-I-I-I-I," Bluestreak stuttered, shaking noticeably as Shockwave's optic remained in the half-circle, but seemed to glow brighter, as if amused, "I j-just came in with m-my friends. I'm not l-looking for t-trouble."

"Ah," Shockwave chuckled, "You mean Black Lie and Basketcase, who are interfacing in room 10, Rad and Arcee, who are dancing rather politely, and the insects that are getting overenergized in the corner near the exit, I take it? You may not be looking for trouble, but at least four of them are."

Bluestreak, who was always talking about one thing or another for long periods of time without stopping, was left speechless at the information even he was unaware of. He was alone with the enemy and the enemy was being polite and informative without any asking. He hadn't been taught how to deal with something like this in boot camp yet…


	9. Diamonds and Rust

**Disclaimer: If I owned a thing, I wouldn't be here…. Well, maybe that's not true. I'm just that pathetic.**

This chapter is dedicated to my only reviewer thus far, focusing on the suggestion given. Be warned, though, faithful reviewer, it will not quite be what you hoped for, considering I officially paired Starscream up with Jetfire. Don't worry, there will be hints of one-sided love! It's a one-shot for you because I'm feeling generous and bored and in a bitter sweet romance mood.

* * *

_Your smile reminded me of…  
I always remind people of… Who is she?  
She died. –RENT._

* * *

**Diamonds and Rust- Joan Baez:**Starscream ducked under yet another gutted tunnel's entrance, his wings accidentally scraping against the walls and getting muddy in the process. He was not meant for things underground, he hated things underground! It felt like he was suffocating with all this mud and water surrounding him and no visible way out.

He gave pause for a moment and turned to see if Alexis was still following or if she had lost him at the last turn in this private version of the Pit. It was no wonder this mining system had been condemned, there were probably a few dozen 'Bots who died from simply going the wrong way and falling into a hole or down a shaft.

"Alexis?" He called lightly, not willing to raise his voice in the off chance he bring the whole tunnel down on his head. He didn't fancy digging himself free again after his ex-comrades had sealed the entrance to this place.

"I'm coming," The green femme called back, dainty peds tromping through the mud and bringing her back into sight of the red Seeker.

Now, whereas Starscream simply looked like had been pelted with mud by a pack of Sparklings, Alexis looked like she'd been dragged a mile through clay, sand and mud. They'd both been buried when the entrance to the cave's system had come down, but since Starscream was much bigger, it had been easy for him to push himself free. She, on the other hand, needed his help and he had to use a stray, slightly damaged shovel to get the packed debris off of her.

At the moment, she looked far less than happy trying to get to him. There was a grimace on her face as her peds kept getting stuck and she had to hold the walls to get loose. Only to get stuck again.

Starscream couldn't help the tiny smile that formed on his lips as she did a half-twist to get free and finally decided to use her thrusters in her peds to hover above the muck, arms crossing as she noticed the look he was giving her.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," Starscream chuckled, moving on through the tunnel.

Taking slow and careful steps, Starscream couldn't help but think over the events that had lead to this.

_He had been ordered by Prime to go in with a few trainees from different boot camps as part of their training just after their first year or so in the camps to test what they'd learned and report back to him after a mission what they could do to seek improvement. The trainees were chosen at random, which was fine by him, but he hadn't expected to draw two very annoying mechs that should have been on a construction crew, not in military training, and one of his little friends._

_He was more than happy to see her, seeing as they hadn't met up in weeks thanks to the training Sentinel was putting her and the other post-humans through…and other things, and she seemed happy to see him as well, that shy little blush and smile settling in place when he walked up behind her to say hello. That smile abruptly leaving her when the other two showed up and immediately started hitting on her. Like cats in heat… It took all Starscream's self-control not to whack them both on the back of the helm with the datapad needed to review them all. The red Seeker settled for making a note in the datapad for the mechs, designations Springer and Hot Rod, to get some more lessons on respect and etiquette when partnered with femmes._

_Leaving for the abandoned mining facility Optimus had them check out for Decepticon activity, the two mechs driving below as the Seekers flew ahead, Starscream and Alexis got the chance to catch up, both of them ignoring the occasional wolf-whistles from other flyers they passed on the way._

_When they got to the mine, Starscream had gone in first, Alexis following just after, absently making the occasional angry spark when Springer got too close to her rear, Hot Rod trailing behind the much taller green mech._

_Near the end of the tunnel, even though Starscream had thought that it would be clear considering there were no marks in the wet ground to indicate there had been any Cybertronian, 'Bot or 'Con, to come down here for months, Starscream's optics caught movement. He'd made a motion for the younglings to still their movement and wait for him as he pulled a pistol from his sub-space and carefully crept forward. The younglings did as directed, all readying their own weapons and waited for further orders._

_Starscream barely had his head out of the tunnel before it was almost blown off by laser fire. There were at least a half-dozen Decepticons waiting for them in the main cavern. He'd only gotten a short look before he had to fire back, but he had seen some of them moving crates of unprocessed, raw energon. The kind this mine had allegedly run out of sometime ago._

_He had called for the younglings to make a retreat and the mechs had done as told, high-tailing out of there as fast as their legs would carry them. Alexis had stayed to help him return fire, each of them sending two to three Decepticons to the ground, but not kill them. By the time they had even thought to turn around and make their way back the way they had come, they got a nasty surprise in the form of three more Con's coming in through a side tunnel, each brandishing a practical cannon and aimed at the two flyers._

_Starscream had enough time to shoot the ceiling above the 'Cons and pull Alexis into a side tunnel that showed absolutely no signs of activity whatsoever. Unfortunately, the mechs that were in the central cavern had enough sense to do the same thing the red Seeker had done and shot the ceiling with above three plasma blasts, effectively causing everything to come crashing down on top of them._

_Starscream woke up some time later feeling like he'd been in an all out fight with both Megatron and Tidal Wave and lost. And of course, he'd been rather annoyed to find he was buried under rock and mud._

Now, Starscream was trying to figure out a way to get out of this hell hole without feeling the urge to just punch through the walls until they got back outside. He'd already directed them down several very long and disgusting tunnels and he had the feeling he was going to get a lecture any second.

He was right.

"You know," Alexis began, "I've been wondering where you've been lately. I know you're busy, but I have it on good authority from Sentinel's trenchant mouth that you still make time to visit the bars in Iacon, at least on the days off you actually take. So, what's up with that?"

The bad feeling that had been tingling in the back of his processor had been right. He felt bad for not seeing her, of course, but he'd kept his distance for good reasons. Or, at least they were good reasons if he didn't say them out loud…

Taking another turn and suppressing the urge to take that train of thought involving punching the walls actually seriously, Starscream replied sheepishly, "I thought it would be better for you."

"Why?"

"Because of what your "brothers" told me, before Jetfire and I told you about us. I thought you'd be angry for a while and wanted to give you a chance to cool down."

Her face crossed between emotions rather easily at this answer. First she looked confused, then just shy of enraged and then finally settled on mortification. It would have been funny had it been happening to anyone else in the universe. But it was happening to her and happening to him, so he settled on feeling guilty.

She cleared her throat awkwardly before speaking again, following him as he jumped a broken beam that once was attached to the ceiling, but had rusted out and fallen, "What exactly did they tell you?"

"Uh," He hesitated, "It wasn't so much what they actually told me, but what they implied."

"And that would be?"

He really didn't want to answer her. He'd rather turn to his alt mode and hope that the cave broke down and collapsed on top of him again, but seeing as they'd entered an area that looked hard as steel and much less damp, that idea was out of the running. Thus, he handled the question gently.

"That you may have…. Had…feelings of the romantic kind…for me….since Earth…"

The reaction from her that followed would have been rather spectacular to witness if he weren't standing right next to her. Perhaps in a stadium somewhere, but not right next to her. A stream of expletives came pouring out of her, followed by her body giving off a magnificent light show composed of pure electricity that ranged in color from blinding white to (ironically) electric blue. The swearing was directed in thought of the post-human mechs, not Starscream, but he was uncertain about the electricity that looked like it could power three city blocks.

When she finished, she settled back into the look a kicked puppy might have and stated rather pathetically to Starscream, "I'm still happy that you're with Jetfire, though. I'm still you're friend. And…I'm really glad you found someone that makes you happy."

Starscream gave her a blank look, "But, you did have feelings for me?"

Alexis shrugged, wings that looked like an upside down 'V' moving discreetly with the motion, "Kinda. I'll get over it. Friend's don't ruin their friends' relationships because that friend may simply be experiencing puppy love stemming from when she was thirteen. Like I said, I'm just glad you found someone who loves you back."

The red Seeker heard her words and felt a warm, soft feeling welling up in him. It wasn't like how he felt with Jetfire, not love in terms that could be translated to romance, but it was a sort of love. Giving a half-sad, half-soft smile at the young femme he felt he'd come to know perfectly now that all areas of their relationship were cleared, Starscream lightly wrapped his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. She lightly patted him back and he let go of her, to see a dusty blush settle on her face.

"Thank you," Starscream said, really meaning the words.

"You're welcome," She replied back, still blushing.


	10. Special Delivery

Disclaimer: I own nothing in relation to the Transformers, which are the property of Hasbro/Takara, blah, blah, blah.

* * *

_There are a great number of FINE women out there.  
But not all of them bring you lasagna at work.  
Most of them just cheat on you.  
-Clerks._

* * *

**Survival:**

"_Over here, over here!"_

Moving his back up against the large piece of rubble that kept him out of range of the gunfire and laser blasts sounded off above his head, Blackout stared out over the expanse of bedlam. And over to the broken ship, Inferno trying to coax him to safety. He was so scared. He'd already taken a huge risk just moving this far out into the chaos…

The little tracker sucked in some non-existent air to calm himself and think.

'_Be brave. Be brave like Demolisher. Just one more time…'_

Mind made up and with the hope that one of those stupid Bulks fighting around wouldn't notice and/or step on him, the Mini-con sprung out of his hiding spot and towards the ship.

Inferno stayed in the entrance while calling and encouraging the younger mech forward. They didn't like each other very much, but at the moment, that wasn't at all as important as their survival. Alone, they would most certainly be offlined or captured, and neither of them wanted to die or become someone else's tool. They liked their own current partners too much…Even if they had lost them and were nowhere on sight.

But, that hadn't been Demolisher or Thrust's fault. They had been injured and hadn't known they were missing, because neither Mini-con had cried out.

**Not Quite a Phoenix:**

Skyfire looked at the femme holding his creations like a man who was looking at a Grim Reaper delivering fluffy, bright eyed kittens.

He'd been panicking for the last several hours because those hacks that were running the third Decepticon Base on planet Brilig had allowed their base to be overrun and set on fire by the Autobots. And of course, he'd left his offspring there because those in charge had appeared to have their act together and the jet would only be one base away cleaning up some technical glitch in the computers. It was only when he'd finished his word did one of the lower officers come and tell him the news of the Third base's destruction.

Thrust had been in the hall when the massive white jet had collapsed, rushing to Skyfire as the severity of the situation hit him. It was like what happened a month ago all over again, only this time there was little hope that his sons would come back. The base had been blown up and there were reports that the Autobots had made sure that there was nothing left, waiting just outside the blaze to gun down any who stepped out.

Then, two hours into being thrown into misery and grief, Thrust had gotten a rather strange comm. from a flyer who said to have Skyfire waiting at the base's entrance as soon as possible. The white jet hadn't heard the actual conversation, but from Thrust's side of it, he was either talking with someone of the same rank who he hated a lot, or someone he hated and had to deal with on the most unpleasant of occasions. One way or the other, when the caller cut the line, Thrust kicked the wall like a sparkling and then hauled the much larger mech outside.

Still feeling horrible and rather despondent, Skyfire watched the sky like the cone headed tactician (without tapping his ped in impatience) for someone who was probably just going to give him more bad news.

What he hadn't expected was to see a Seeker whose model type he hadn't seen before, left side seeming to be on fire, with smoke trailing after it. He vaguely registered Thrust making a squawk as the flyer did a deep roll, hitting the fence line that surrounded the base and barely landed correctly five feet in front of them. There was still a tiny flame clinging to the tip of its left wing as it settled to the ground, little whines coming from its cockpit. The soot from the flames made the flyer appear quite black and in pain, but it didn't switch to robot mode, deciding instead to direct a muffled, if not a very fragged off question at Thrust.

"Good evening Squidhead, is this Skyfire?"

Biting back that usual snap he had prepared for anyone who called him that, Thrust took a step forward and slapped the flyer's right wing irritably, "Yes, it is. And why the Pit are you here…on fire?"

"Special delivery."

Without any preamble whatsoever, the flyer's cockpit sprung open, burnt paint flying off with other debris and ash in the process to reveal three sets of very bright optics that got very excited at the sight of Skyfire. The white jet's sparklings each gave a sparkmelting round of chirps and beeps and reached for their creator, the Seeker who had carried them to the base giving a little chuckle, but remaining in alt mode until Skyfire snapped out of the daze that set in at the sight of his offspring and lunged forward to pick them all up in his massive arms.

Skyfire decided that this was probably the second best feeling he'd felt in his life. The first when he'd lost his sons a month ago and gotten them back via Starscream and Demolisher. But, it was pretty much a tie, considering it was on equal ground and he felt like the weight of the world left him each time. He wanted to scream in joy, but was content to let Greyshift, Stormtrooper and Acidstreak make the noise as they chirped and cuddled his faceplate contentedly.

The white mech didn't quite register the sounds of transformation until he heard Thrust make a surprised sound in the back of his throat and start fussing over burns and other injuries on the flyer.

"How do you keep letting these things happen? Starscream's going to wring my neck when he sees you like this!"

"I fail to see your point," A rather young feminine voice replied, finally causing Skyfire to look up from his little ones and see who'd brought them to him.

Thrust was talking to a very young and by design, very short femme Seeker who may have been a sort of mix of green had she not been covered in grime and soot. The cone head was right, though. She did have an awful lot of burns on her left side, left wing also giving off sparks as she glared at Thrust, arms crossed and making her look quite regal despite it all. Skyfire couldn't help the guilt rising in him as he realized that she'd probably gotten her injuries from getting his creations out of the base.

**Teen Hearts Beating:**

Big servos carefully and gently worked into the seams of Carlos' gaping shoulder strut wound and Thundercracker found himself wondering why the Pit he was even bothering to repair the strange two-wheeler. True, Starscream and Skywarp and a large portion of the Decepticon army had come to view the post-humans with respect and a morbid fascination, but most didn't see themselves throwing away their careers and reputations to help them.

'_Well, maybe that's not true,_' The blue Seeker thought in an almost chastising way as his fingers worked to plug some of the leaking energon lines that most Transformers didn't have in their arms, absently noting at the same time that the so-called energon spilling from the lines was a rather odd color red, '_Demolisher was certainly willing to put his aft on the line for this one and the other two-wheeler.'_

Ignoring the unconscious groans that came from Carlos, his left arm trying in vain to lift itself and slug Thundercracker in the face, the blue Seeker continued his work with little more ease than a third-rate medic on his first day on the job. He hardly knew what to do when a normal mech was injured, let alone this scrawny little thing like this. He smelled like iron and a lot of things that Thundercracker decided he really didn't like and the weird energon coating the flyer's servos, which according to Starscream would not come out with regular cleaning fluid.

Again, the eldest of the Seeker brothers wonder why he was even bothering.

**Small Words:**

Optics like blue fire looked up into equal blue pools as Hot Shot onlined his optics and finally registered just where the Pit he was. Wheeljack had taken him to his own berth in the Decepticon private rooms generally only used for recharge and interfacing and had treated the burns as best he could. Considering how badly the yellow mech had been hurt, Wheeljack did an excellent job.

There was still pain in Hot Shot's system, but he didn't make a sound as Wheeljack wordlessly traced his servos over the Autobot's faceplate. When Hot Shot had been seizing a mere hour ago, the black and gold mech had been afraid out of his mind. Now that Hot Shot was stable, he couldn't bring himself to be mad about the situation foisted upon him by some sick entity.

Instead he just kept looking at him and couldn't think of anything else to say other than, "…Hey."

**Tick-Tock, Tickety-Tock:**

The morning's energon dribbled all over the table as Firestar tried to compose herself. Some of the energon still fell from her mouth and this, she felt, was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her to date. Certainly wouldn't be the last, but it was in the top ten.

"Uh," Fred hesitated, handing his girlfriend a piece of fabric that hung from his shoulders to help her clean up, "I'm sorry. That was inappropriate, wasn't it?"

"No," Firestar replied, sarcasm dripping from every word, "It's okay. If I had a credit for every time a mech asked me if I wanted to have sparklings with them I'd have… one credit. What is wrong with you today?"

Fred, the big ebony sweetheart, suddenly looked very twitchy. His fingers were twiddling and he kept looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody, most of all Sentinel, was walking their way before replying in a whisper, "I…think…I may…be pregnant."


	11. OneShot 2

**Disclaimer:** If I owned anything… I just don't own anything, 'kay?

This is another one-shot, but this is between Moonracer and Alexis because I need to develop more on the Towers femme's story-line and couldn't think of anyone else that could balance out her chipperness. Don't worry, it's non-romantic. If anyone reads this, some suggestions for other one-shots would be fabulous.

* * *

_I'm and angel, I'm a devil  
I am sometimes in-between.  
I'm as bad as it can get  
And good as it can be.  
-Hilary Duff._

* * *

**Formalities:**

Moonracer looked up hopefully from her brother and the highly respected Decepticon scientist Acidstorm as the electric bell that chimed with each new customer rang and hope started to well up in her chassis. The restaurant they had chosen wasn't too pricy thankfully and the blue-green femme had convinced Billy via comm. link in utter desperation to send in one of his "siblings" an hour ago. Now, walking in and ignoring the prissy femmes near the door that sneered at her on the way in at the sight of her, was Alexis with what appeared to be a datapad with the directions to this place.

The green Seeker didn't look happy to be there and despite Moonracer getting up to greet her, she walked right over to the counter to order something she could stomach that was also in her price range.

Thanking Primus that neither Mirage nor Acidstorm had noticed her friend, Moonracer excused herself to get another round of classic high grade and walked over to Alexis.

"Thank you for coming all this way," Moonracer greeted, sidling up beside the other femme and making sure her brother and the advisor to her future sparkmate weren't watching, "Why don't you sit down with us and work your magic?"

"No thanks," Alexis declined, still looking over the moving electric letters of the restaurant's menu board. Inwardly, she sneered at the cost of it all and started looking for anything that was not only inexpensive but wouldn't make her wake up the next day passed out on top of Sentinel's peds cuddling what may or may not have been what was left of one of Shockwave's antlers. She did not want to experience that again, **NO**. Maybe they had those really good Rust Sticks that one could dip in her favorite cheap low grade…

Moonracer kept her stance but her voice was all but sinister and she whispered through clenched dentals, "What do you mean 'No thanks?' I need you to help me deal with my brother! Didn't Billy explain this to you?"

"Moonie," Alexis spoke calmly, "I'm not going to help you lie your way out of here. If you want out of this lovely situation you'll have to do it on your own. Tell him your feelings on staying at his home and planning the wedding or enjoy your drinks."

A desperate look crossed Moonracer's look and a sort of bitterness filled her voice, "Then what, did you come here to gloat because you knew I couldn't do this?"

Teal optics seemed to roll at her question, "No, Moonie. I am not that petty. I'm here to get something to eat and to enjoy the looks those little twits at the door give me when I sit down and start to bleed all over the table. My stitches popped on the way here," She informed, holding up her arms for the Towers femme to see, the breaks in her synthetic skin indeed dripping just a tiny bit from the transformation sequence, "Thank you for calling me, by the way."

Leaving Moonracer with that horrified look she gave whenever the blue-green femme saw one of the post-organics injured, Alexis finally stepped up to the counter to order, the blue Towers mech behind the counter that looked a lot like a waiter at a five star restaurant on Earth removing his glare when she started speaking to him.

"I'd like one of those Rust Stick Bowls. Small size. With the blue energon coating."

The mech nodded, ringing up the cost and handed Alexis her number, "You're number thirteen. That will be twenty-seven credits."

Walking away, back to the table with her brother, Moonracer couldn't help but feel some small satisfaction when the green Seeker gave a groan and handed the mech most of the credits she had, snatching the ticket from his servos.

* * *

"…and darling, your paint will need a few touch-ups. Perhaps some white or lilac highlights on your shoulders and hip plating? Oh, Acidstorm, did you get the mech's color scheme for me? I need to make sure they at least on color match for their servos."

"Yes, I've got it right here, but I'm afraid he's against having white for his highlighting. He may be open to lilac, but perhaps a dark blue would fit the both of them?"

"Maybe. But, you know, with his colors, I think our best bet would have to be…"

Through all of this talking, Moonracer had yet to get a word in edgewise. She stayed in the submissive position of sitting straight and her head held high to sip from her almost empty cup of energon. It wasn't as though what she had to say mattered anyway. This whole ordeal was out of her control and anything she had to say would be vetoed out, even if she was the bride. This was all about politics and she was simply a bartering chip.

She absently tilted her head to look back at the counter and saw that her friend was still standing there. She was watching Moonracer and the two mechs and cussing the service mechs under her breath at the same time. It had been thirty minutes and two other customers had been served before her. Moonracer supposed that they were in the same boat. The Towers femme was ignored because she was just an odd, pretty femme meant to be used by every other Towers mechanism, including her brother, and Alexis was ignored because the Towers mechs and femmes frowned upon anyone who was different.

As these thoughts spun in her processor, Moonracer suddenly got an idea and waited for an in for this conversation between Mirage and Acidstorm. If she played this right, she could make Mirage either outraged enough or embarrassed enough to not even notice or care when Moonracer got up and left. If Mirage still wouldn't let her go… Well, she would think of something. Her comrade would doubtlessly be waiting in the wings until she got her meal. There was no way Alexis was paying so much money without getting her food. Moonracer would know, she hadn't seen the green Seeker ingest anything in two days.

"And don't forget," Mirage said, Moonracer straightening even more when his sentence came in that haughty tone he used sometimes, "I know Megatron and his right hand mechs have to be there, but could we keep the flyers invited to a minimum? I enjoy your company Acidstorm, but some of your brethren leave much to be desired."

"Oh, but Mirage, I think the Decepticon flyers are hot," Moonracer spoke up in her perky, happy, don't-interrupt-me-slaggit voice that commanded anyone's attention, "In fact I'm friends with quite a few at the moment and already invited them to the wedding."

The energon Mirage was sipping sprayed from his lips at her words, the liquid splattering the table and causing Aicidstorm to move back in his chair and move his own drink out of the way. Mirage looked like he'd just seen Moonracer strip off all of her armor in the town square and sputtered, "Moonie! Wha-wha—"

"And furthermore," Moonracer started again, standing up from her seat, absently hearing Alexis start to cackle behind the ground femme and getting a little boost of bravery because of it, "I've been meaning to tell you that I'm actually seeing the Decepticon Skywarp for flying tours around Iacon after I get back to camp this evening. I won't be coming back home with you, brother. What do you say to that?"

Mirage seemed to have lost his words, mouth flapping like the lid on a mailbox.

Just as the blue and white Towers mech was about to finally speak, a bell sounded off and the three of them turned to see Alexis practically strangling the mech behind the counter after he told her the meal would be ready in three minutes. Moonracer tried not to laugh at how shocked the service mech looked and silently told herself that the mech was lucky Alexis hadn't killed him. She certainly was happy her friend hadn't, but he probably deserved it.

"Moonracer," Mirage finally spoke, a look of revulsion on his faceplates, "You cannot be serious!"

"I'm afraid I am," Moonracer replied, grabbing her seat and resetting it in front of her, "And I have to say, I'm not lying to you anymore. I'm staying at the camp until the wedding with or without your blessing. What's it gonna be, brother?"

The tall mech looked at a loss, but finally shook his head, disappointed, "I'm sorry Moonie. I can't give you my blessing."

A sad, but defiant look settled not only on the blue-green femme's face, but into her optics, making her look just a bit older and a great deal wiser all of a sudden, "I can live with that."

From out of nowhere, breaking the looks the siblings were giving each other, almost like a rock breaking through a window, a lithe green arm slithered over Moonracer's neck, a bag in servo as a weight settled behind the pretty femme, pleasant electric shocks tickling the blue-green femme as a voice she could identify very well now, spoke up, "Good for you, Moonie. Bravo!"

"Who the slag are you?" Acidstorm asked in utter surprise of the green Seeker in front of them, hugging his business associate's sister in what many would mistake as affection.

"Oh, just a friend of Moonie's," Alexis said in a sickeningly sweet voice, hugging the blue-green femme in pride. She gave Mirage a wicked smirk when Moonracer gave a little squeak at her friend's odd behavior, teal optics scaring the Pit out of the Towers mech as they narrowed at him deviously, "She and I are in boot camp together and I'm giving her a lift back."

Acidstorm, completely oblivious to the looks Mirage was throwing both of the femmes, tilted his head at Alexis, optics going from her, to the counter where the service mech was looking scandalized and a little roughed up, "Didn't you come in forty minutes ago?"

The happy smile on Alexis' face dissolved into oblivion and she was reminded of something, apparently, "Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me."

Picking up Moonracer and slinging her over her shoulder like a sparkling, Moonracer laughing at the treatment and the look she could see on her brother's face, Alexis tightened her grip on the food bag and made for the electric bell attached to the door. Like she had done this before, the green femme put the bag into her mouth and held it with her dentals and without any real technical difficulties, her pointer finger created a dangerous looking ball of electricity.

Carefully, Alexis pressed the glowing finger to the sound modulator for the bell and the electricity was absorbed within.

A few seconds passed, the patrons at the front, the prissy femmes, the service mech Alexis had choked, Mirage and Acidstorm all looked rather curious at what was achieved from this. Nothing was happening, but none of them moved a circuit, the prissy femmes giving Moonracer a weird look as she kept giggling, obviously knowing something none of them did.

Without waiting for anything else, Alexis opened the door and the electric bell started making an unholy, narcissistic drone, causing all of the other mechs and femmes to clutch at their audio receivers and flinch back in their spots. Even when the door shut, with Moonracer waving good-bye to her previous company, the noise didn't stop. If anything it only got louder and the service mech started dialing for a repair mech.

* * *

"That wasn't so hard, now, was it, Moonie?"

Sitting atop Alexis' alt mode, like she was riding on the finest flying machine ever and looking for all the world like a pixie riding on the back of a giant green sparrow, Moonracer couldn't stop laughing. This was perhaps the first time in her life that she had gotten what she really wanted and it felt more than satisfying, remembering the look on her brother's face as she left, hanging over her friend's shoulder. His mouth flapping in the wind and totally ignorant of the impressed look Acidstorm had given his sister, Mirage had been the poster-boy for shock.

"Oh, you are so bad!" Moonracer finally managed to choke out, still laughing as Alexis did a small roll through the air as they passed under an awning, "I don't think I'll be able to go into that restaurant again, either. Not with the way you treated the service mech."

"_Forty minutes for Rust Sticks_. He's lucky I didn't send him to an emergency room or set the building on fire."

"Yes," Moonracer sighed, gripping the Seeker's wings as they did a dive rather close to some telephone wires, "I suppose that's true. Where are we going now?"

A resonating and warm chuckle ran through Alexis' frame as they did another dive, gaining altitude with a little spin, "To that neutral bar in Iacon I told you about. Skywarp's waiting to take you on that tour."

"But-but-but," The Towers femme sputtered, obviously confused at her friend's words, "You said you wouldn't help me lie my way out of that! How did you know I'd—"

"Because I _know_ you," Alexis answered, "You're a ditz and a scatter-brain, but you were obviously set on getting the hell out of there if you were calling _Billy_ to save you. You got stuck with me, but it was clear that you were still getting out. And here we are."

Moonracer was stunned into silence for a few minutes, enjoying the scenery as they flew over the city, from the provincial neighborhoods to the less than classy places. Thoughts of the words Alexis had used were making her feel warm and fuzzy. Odd, since she usually just made everyone mad.

"Do I detect a compliment in that little speech?"

"Watch out for that flagpole, I might let it hang you, missy."


	12. Babyfaced

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

_My dearest friend,  
If you don't mind,  
I'd like to join you by your side.  
-The Nightmare Before Christmas._

* * *

**Candy Man:**Wicked but talented fingers skimmed over the very drunk mech's chassis when Slipstream was sure Demolisher wasn't going to fall off the berth and hurt himself. She was positive he was still awake, she just had to make sure that he stayed that way if she wanted to get paid for this endeavor. Thrust had been very adamant that the mech be a willing participant in the interfacing and that she not molest him while he was in recharge or worse, rape him.

"Do you like this?" The Seekerette asked seductively, pinching lightly at the wiring that poked between seems and made the tank groan when she applied even more pressure.

"Y-yeah…"

Hm. Not quite as awake as she would have liked, but he was at least responding verbally. She upped the ante to get his arms moving so she could really start this so-called mission. If he could hold her so she wouldn't fall from the perch that was his groin, than she wouldn't feel guilty later. Slowly, Slipstream pressed her lips to Demolisher's mouth and slid her glossa over his, trying to entice a bolder response. All things considered, he didn't taste as bad as some of the mechs she's had a quick night of fun with, thanks to the high grade he'd downed not one hour ago.

That got a big response as his previously dimmed optics lit up considerably and his arms wrapped around her to bring her closer. She grinned into the kiss and bucked over his groin, one servo twiddling with the wires in his neck while the other looked for the latch to his interface panel.  
**  
Women's Magic:**

"Thrust," Alexis hissed, vocals dulled considerably as Greyshift continued to cling to her head like a confused wombat, his tiny wings continuing to flitter as he chirped happily from his spot on her face, "This is getting really old. It's not bad enough that I've had to return these little monsters _twice_, but now this one is stalking me? Get it off my face!"

Doing as told before the green femme started flailing, Thrust leaned over and wrapped his servos around Greyshift's middle and pulled. When nothing happened, he tried again, but the tiny flyer held firm, giving an irritated hiss at the attempt to deprive him of this soft creature he'd gone through the other adults to get to.

"Just so you know," Thrust spoke gently, amused, "This little one is a mech. He is not an It."

"Do I look like I care?" She grumbled, crossing her arms to keep them from doing something stupid, like punch the cone head.

"I don't know," Thrsut said, "He's covering your face pretty well. He's like a space barnacle. I really wish I had a camera."

"Keep dreaming."

"Like I'd waste my dreams on you," The tactician snorted. He gave Greyshift a little tickle to the joints under his shoulders, an overly surprised squeak erupting from the sparkling and his grip easing for a fraction of a second. Thrust took that opportunity to pull back, stumbling and landing on his aft with the little one making little static laced sounds of disapproval after realizing the mistake he'd made.

Greyshift starting to whine a little and tried reaching for Alexis as her very annoyed face was finally revealed, her teal optics shuttered on after being blinded for the last two hours. The little sparkling really wanted the femme back and Thrust looked at a loss of what to do.

Carefully rising from his spot on the floor, the green mech tried to hand the little one to Alexis, but she just gave an annoyed frown and took a step back.

'_Figures,_' Thrust thought testily, _'I'm an acquaintance to the only femme in the universe that doesn't like sparklings.'_

"Well?" Alexis started, arms still folded even as Greyshift started to tear up when it became obvious to him that she wasn't going to take him back, "You work with his dad, take him back home."

"Why don't you take him back?" Thrust almost shouted, unconsciously bringing Greyshift to his chestplates to calm the little one down. He was a ruthless Decepticon military mech, but no body, 'Bot or 'Con, could ignore a distressed sparkling for very long. It was in their programming to protect little ones and comfort them. How the post-human before him could stand seeing the sparkling like this made him wonder if she was missing a spark, or if she even had one to begin with.

"Just because I'm female doesn't mean I have magical powers over babies," The green femme said, "And I don't want him clinging to my face again. Also, I'm not a Decepticon. It's not my job."

Thrust, not thinking at all, sprung forward and placed the tiny flyer into Alexis' arms. She had no time to react as the much taller Transformer's servos let go of Greyshift and instinct kicked in to make her hold onto the him. Greyshift wasted no time in clinging to the femme's middle, purring at how soft and warm she was. He didn't even notice how she went stiff at the vibrations coming from the purring and looked up at Thrust like she wanted to rip him in half.

"You slimy, little…"

"Oh, be quiet," Thrust chuckled, "We'll take him back together. I want to see the look on Skyfire's face when he sees you again, only to also discover one of his creations has chosen a new… What was the word you humans use? Oh, yes, _Mommy_."

Alexis sneered at the taller flyer and started walking down the Decepticon halls, completely ignoring the many mechs who looked not only at her and Greyshift, but also at Thrust like they were mental, "You don't know what you're saying."

"I think I'll start calling you that," Thrust said devilishly as he walked beside her, avoiding the various jabs made with her elbow to his middle, "Behave mommy, the sparklings are watching. We'll make ze big zoom-zoom later."

Alexis groaned at the childish words, absently keeping her hand firmly under the sparkling as he started to drift into recharge. Why did all the mechs she knew act like pre-pubescent little boys? Still, the words that spilled from his vocalize provoked a rather witty come-back she'd been saving just for him.

"'We' as in, you and me, or 'we' as in, you and your right servo?"

**Losers?:**

"I have a date!"

Surprised and having not even heard the post-human enter his office, Sentinel sputtered the energon he'd just consumed, dental plates accidentally grinding against the cube he was drinking from and sending little tweaks of pain through his entire head.

Rad came right up to his sergeant's desk with the stupidest happy grin on his face ever. The blue plow had to busy himself with using the spare rag he'd started carrying around in his subspace since this nightmare that was teaching began and cleaned up the mess he'd made to keep himself from hitting the blue sports car as he started talking about his endeavor for the evening. Primus, how he wished for the days when his trainees knocked and understood how little he cared about them…

"Arcee asked me out! That's totally awesome, right?" Rad spoke, voice unusually high as the excitement ran through him like heroine, "I'm mean sure, on Earth the guy usually asks out the girl, but it's still awesome! And the best part is that it's my day off and we can stay out and do whatever we want for as long as we like-"

"Your curfew is still two o'clock in the A.M., youngling."

"_Still_. I mean, I didn't even know she liked me and just out of the blue she asked me out to the neutral bar at Iacon. Fantastic!"

Sentinel felt his optics flicker twice and he leaned on his arm, annoyance clearly written on his face as the teen continued.

"And the best part is that I actually have the money to pay for this. She won't have to pay for a thing, right? I mean, paying for everything is the right thing to do for the guy, right? That won't make me a chauvinistic jackass or anything?"

It took a few seconds for the sergeant to realize Rad was actually talking to him and not just at him and when the awkward silence lasted far longer than it should have, Sentinel cleared his vents and leaned forward and tried not to be too harsh as he spoke, "I haven't a fragging clue. Why are you asking me?"

"Well…um…you're my teacher?" Rad offered.

Sentinel couldn't help but give an almost hysterical chorus of laughter and leaned back into his chair before pointing at the door, "Get out of my office and go get ready."

Rad, being perhaps the only actually respectful of the younglings taught under Sentinel, gave a small bow of the head with a strained, 'yes sir,' and did just as told, departing through the door and leaving a fairly happier Sentinel behind. A little confused about what this whole thing amounted to, but happier none-the-less.

**Gift From Above or Below, It All Depends Who Your Friends Are:**

Still holding Wheeljacks' hands while at the same time giving her brother an evil glare, Moonracer leaned in as the substitute justice of the peace ordered and tried not to cry as leaned over at the same time for the practice kiss and-

"_MOONRACER!"_

Everyone in the wedding hall from the blue-green femme's brother, who coughed up the high grade energon he'd been sipping, to Firestar, Fred and Rad mocking this whole event in the front row, cringed at the voice and volume from the loud speakers. Moonracer, on the other hand, was piqued with interest as it was Sentinel's voice and a scuffling in the background that allowed her _not_ to kiss the handsome black and gold Decepticon.

"_Moonracer, this is Sentinel, your drill sergeant…obviously. I know you're in the building, so please head to the front desk and tell these morons that you invited us, before Alexis strangles the desk clerk. PLEASE."_

All heads that had turned to where the speakers were positioned, turned back to look at Moonracer, including Wheeljack, and found that the femme was no longer standing in her forever-more stiff position of holding Wheeljack's servos. She was running down the aisle with her three boot camp friends, the happiest smile on her face in forever.

When they traversed the twelve hallways from the wedding room and to the front desk, they were all met with the half-amusing sight of Sentinel with a rather bored expression standing three steps away from Alexis, whom was clutching the desk for dear life with her legs, sporting the new heels Moonracer had installed, splayed out behind her. The rest of the mechs from boot camp were buzzing around looking at the art posted on the walls or in Bumblebee and Wasp's case, trying to put back up a vase they had accidentally knocked over.

Quickly and like an exuberant squirrel, Moonracer pounced on Alexis, sending them to the floor as she hugged the post-human, ignoring how pissed off the other looked as she squealed, "You came! I was so worried our plan wouldn't work! But Firestar was right! You're here for my wedding, thank you!"

Snarling, Alexis grabbed Moonracer's chin so it was no longer embedded in the crook of her chest and spoke clearly and with accusation present, "You stole my stabilizing servos to make us come to your freaking wedding! What is wrong with you?"

Moonracer's smile didn't falter, she was far too used to her teammate's disposition, "Well, Sentinel said that the rest of you wouldn't come to the wedding unless it was totally necessary. So, Firestar and I set it up for you to drive him insane until he brought everyone up. Clever, yes?"

"She still needs her stabilizing servos back, Moonie," Sentinel spoke up, standing right next to the pile of femmes.

"Will you be staying for the wedding?" The Towers femme asked almost pleadingly, despite Alexis bucking her off so she could wobble up and hold back onto the desk for support. Everyone ignored the desk clerk, Firestar's friend from her early years called Glyph, who looked on in nervous if not morbid fascination.

Sentinel rubbed the his optics a moment and then looked resigned to fate, "If you can find rooms for all of us and give Alexis back her stabilizing servos, than yes, we will stay."

The mechs from boot camp all gave a little cheer and Moonracer glomped onto Sentinel's chassis much like she had with Alexis. Sentinel stayed standing and blushed at the contact.


	13. My Best Friend's Wedding

Disclaimer: Not my property, that's Hasbro/Takara.

This one-shot is beyond important because I have finally decided to get to the wedding. This is important for many reasons, but mostly because I wanted to solidify this particular plot-line. Enjoy.

* * *

_I'm gonna set it free  
I'm gonna let it fly.  
Send it up to the sun to weave patterns in the sky  
Find the criminal bird  
I'll let them decide.  
And when I stand clear, and see what I've done  
I know I'll forget to fight these wars un-won.  
-Stand Clear._

* * *

**My Best Friend's Wedding:**

About a hundred mechs and femmes alike, Decepticon, Autobot, high classed and low classed all turned in their seats to stare with bugged out features at the three post-humans standing in the center aisle at the very end. Each of them had extremely pleased looks on their faces, as did the rest of their comrades from boot camp at the front. Their sergeant looked like he would go offline from embarrassment and their adoptive family all looked shocked and at the same time very interested.

Attentions had, as planned, been drawn away from the soon-to-be bride and groom, their servos retreating to their sides, thankful that the head of the ceremony, Ultra Magnus himself, had been silenced by the three post-humans. Moonracer especially was grateful. If this went as Firestar promised it was planned, she wouldn't be marrying Wheeljack and both of them would get what they wanted—no—needed.

Optimus and Megatron, the former beside Moonracer and the latter beside Wheeljack, both looked serious at Rad, Billy and Alexis. This was supposed to be the day that the factions declared peace through marriage to solidify the claim. They did not want it ruined because they cared too much for their little friend. Even Optimus looked a little agitated.

"Kids," Optimus spoke rather seriously. More seriously than any of them had ever heard him speak, "What can you think of that is reason for these two not to be joined in matrimony? They're about to end our war. Give me one good reason they should not be joined."

Billy, armed with a datapad that perhaps weighed as much as the Prime's leg, grinned mischievously and started the datapad up. Words lit in common English that Billy had programmed into it, translating about a billion loop-holes to get Moonracer and Wheeljack the hell out of this.

"I could give you a few, actually," Billy began, starting up his ability to say long sentences without taking more than a few breathes or pauses, "But first, I'll start off with the easy to understand ones. First, they do not even remotely love each other and that can cause a billion problems with the whole spakbonding thing. I assume Mirage wants his sister to at least be happy in this endeavor?"

Mirage growled at the orange and black mech, but was unable to say a word as Billy started up again, having Rad and Alexis jump in as needed, "Second, we are not against a marriage to end this war. In fact we are fully behind the idea."

"Just not behind the idea of _this_ marriage," Rad put in, pointing between Moonracer and Wheeljack to illustrate their point.

Megatron snorted from beside Wheeljack, but shut up entirely when not only Optimus, but Starscream as well gave him a look. His snort turned into a half-cough and he ended up speaking his own piece, "So what do you propose happens, hm? We go home and plan out another wedding that could take years instead of months to plan?"

"No, no, not at all," Billy replied, waving his servo dismissively as Rad took the lead so the motorcycle could get to the needed part of the datapad.

"We all want this put to rest today, none more so than our leaders since they intend on getting frisky at the apartment complex down the street this evening," Here both leaders practically bit their own tongues off, but Rad kept going, "Congrats on the divorce being finalized, by the way."

Optimus wasn't sure how to respond to that but went with making a cutting motion with his servo near his neck like he'd seen his adopted children do a million times to make him and his best soldiers shut up and stop humiliating them. It had the desired affect and Rad went off the subject. The echoed sounds of most of the wedding guests whispering and giggling filled the room for a moment until Billy spoke up again, finding what he needed from the datapad.

"We actually have the perfect solution to this. Moonracer and Wheeljack will still get married to somebody of opposite faction and they will do it today. They'll just marry someone they've actually met and are more to their own… preferences."

"What's that mean?" Cyclonus asked Red Alert covertly. The blue mech probably knew what the younglings meant but didn't get the chance to say anything as Alexis answered for him.

"It means," The green femme spoke, pointing the weird gun she'd brought in for just in case at the black and gold mech at the altar, "That Wheeljack is gay as Christmas at Bloomingdale's. And Moonie prefers a mech that's not frigid like the other mechs Mirage suggested for our girl. No offence Wheeljack."

"None taken," The former Autobot replied casually, shrugging his shoulders.

"And we have the perfect candidates for each of them," Rad said, smiling at his friends as both he and Alexis went to grab the two mechs, Billy walking up the aisle to actually toss aside the datapad Ultra Magnus had been reading from onto the floor and placing his datapad where the other had been. The orange motorcycle pointed to the lines he'd been reading from and said in the most ineloquent way to the very old Autobot, "Read this when the other two get here."

Showing the first real emotion similar to shock in a very long period of his life, Ultra Magnus looked at the simple, very easy vows the rookie had pointed to. They were short and poetic and so very much like the post-humans causing havoc to this long-planned ceremony that the shock disintegrated from the old mech's face to be done in by a small smile. Don't get him wrong, he liked things to be full of order and without any snags, but this was a good thing Optimus' children were doing. Whether everyone else agreed with it or not.

"Alright," The Magnus answered, gently pulling Moonracer and Wheeljack to their own sides of the alter and turned back to Billy, "Send the ones you chose up here, please."

Billy gave his own smile to the very tall Autobot and pointed at Rad and Alexis. Both teens nodded and headed to their destinations in the stands.

The wedding guests all looked on in fascination as Rad pulled Hot Shot gently from his spot in the second row of the Autobot's side, ever careful of the burns that were still healing and led him up the five-step stairs to Wheeljack's left side. The blue sports car placed Hot Shot's servo in Wheeljack's and stepped down to where he had previously been sitting with the others from boot camp. Both mechs gave each other a look that spoke of feelings that neither of them had ever openly admitted and a gratitude for this moment that they thought would never happen.

The green Seeker femme went over to the Decepticon side, closer to the back with the few flyers that had been invited and hauled Skywarp out of his seat in a no-nonsense kind of way. Leading him up to Moonracer's right side, Alexis gave the Towers femme perhaps the first real smile ever and patted Skywarp on the shoulder as if to say not to go anywhere. As Alexis took her seat beside Firestar, Skywarp gave Moonracer a devilish grin that practically screamed that he had known something about this. Moonracer didn't seem to mind, she was positively glowing in the light of these change of events.

Ultra Magnus took all of this in and decided in the back of his processor that if Mirage or anyone else objected to what was so obviously right, he would smite them himself with his hammer and think nothing of it.

Not waiting another moment, the aged 'Bot started speaking the easy vows Billy had given him, "Moonracer, Wheeljack, do you take these mechs with you in marriage, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, for better or for worse, until the day that you go offline?"

The answer from both was instantaneous and without any form of hesitation, "I do."

"And do you Skywarp and Hot Shot take this femme and this mech with you in marriage, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, for better or for worse, until the day that you go offline?"

"I do."

Ultra Magnus set a servo on both Wheeljack and Moonracer's shoulder, his energy field giving them all the proof they needed to understand how happy this made him (and quite a few of the other mechs and femmes in the room) feel.

"Then by the power vested in me, our faction leaders, the post-humans, Cybertron and Primus, I now pronounce you bonded. You may kiss your mate."

* * *

The ceremony, much more hectic than any Autobot or Decepticon could have ever guessed, went off beautifully after the words left Ultra Magnus and the four bonded mechs and femme kissed. The confetti Bumblebee and Wasp had snuck in had been tossed into the air and the pictures taken by the photographers Mirage had hired were fantastic to look at.

In the reception hall, everyone was celebrating the joining of two factions with one felled swoop. The dancing had started and thanks to Cyclonus, now dancing with Red Alert like an idiot, the music was not simply filled with stuffy ceremony programs, but with some rock, country, pop, romantic and other sorts from Earth. At the moment, the main couples were dancing to a tango remix and everyone was watching just how _happy_ they were.

Rad, in his own little corner at the bar in the back with some little trays of Rust Sticks laid out for everyone, watched with a tired joy at the festivities. When Billy and Alexis had come to him with this crazy-ass scheme, he'd thought that there was no way in hell that they were going to pull it off, and yet, here they all were, in peace, at war's end. And everyone was happy. How was that for youthful intervention? Of course, at the moment, he really didn't feel all that youthful. He felt like what the three of them had done had gone and sucked the last seven years of his life out of him and he needed bed rest and a lot of fluids to get over it. He would start with some high grade. Screw the rules set before him, it was a celebration and he was getting drunk.

"Oh, bartender? Hello?" He asked, holding up one arm to get the mech who he could have sworn he knew from somewhere to look his way. No such luck as he was ignored entirely in favor of the mech cleaning an already clean energon cube. Go figure.

Sighing, Rad turned back to the hall to see the festivities. Megatron and Optimus had already given their toasts to the three grooms and one bride, so they were gone, most likely to get it on with the other and love every second of it. Cyclonus had changed the music to another remix set and he was still dancing with a rather humiliated looking Red Alert with the usual deranged grin on his face. Smokescreen and Scavenger were closer to Rad, just one table away from the dance floor, poking fun at Blurr, whom was caught between Sideswipe and Sunstreaker in a deranged (and sexually charged) version of the tango.

Raising his body higher up to get an even better look, Rad spotted Starscream and Jetfire cuddling (_shiver_) in one of the grotto booths Mirage had tried to bribe the owner of the hall to get rid of, but had stuck around because the old mech liked them. The red ex-Decepticon started nibbling on Jetfire's audio receptor and Rad quickly found someone else to look at so he wouldn't purge his half-empty tank. He quickly found Sentinel in a semi-decent mood, talking with Elita and (Primus only knew why) Thrust about military strategies and how the Pit he was going to survive the next year and a half with his pack of little monsters. Rad couldn't quite make out how Thrust responded to that, but it must have been good, considering he managed to make the up-tight blue plow to laugh rather darkly.

In another corner, in a grotto, Tidal Wave was playing with Stormtrooper, Acidstreak and Greyshift as Skyfire and Thundercracker talked about…whatever it was flyers talked about. It was rather humorous, considering Tidal Wave was basically just sitting still as the two smaller sparkling flyers skittered on his knees and the bravest one (Greyshift?) that generally spent his time stalking Alexis, clung to the giant warship's head and watched the festivities as well.

A dainty servo struck the counter, jolting Rad out of the slumped position he'd started using for the last few minutes and finally gaining the bartender's attention. When the blue sports car looked up the servo to the face attached at the top of the body he was a little shocked to see Arcee looking just shy of falling down drunk and with a very happy smile on her face.

"Bartender, two cubes of high grade! The blue kind! And make it snappy!" She chirped, sitting down on the stool next to Rad.

The intelligence femme, once receiving the drinks, gave one to Rad and turned her hyper chipperness on him, causing the mech to lean a little backwards, "I'm so proud of you! You not only did something for the good of everyone, but made sure your friends were happy! And the information about our leaders was awesome, too! Now everyone knows where they ran off to!"

"Honey," Rad said sweetly as he hooked his hand around the femme's drink to gently get it away from her, "How many of these have you had?"

"Um," she counted off her fingers, "Seven—no, wait, six. Why?"

"Regrettably," Rad replied, getting out of his seat and helping her out of hers, "I think it's time you were off to berth."

"Finally! You think so too?"

"You do have a room here, right?" Rad asked. He stood behind her and she leaned into his broad chassis as she stumbled up, grabbing her drink despite his best attempts to dissuade her from it as they moved around everyone else, passing the insects who were dancing close to Moonracer and Skywarp to occasionally tease her, and bumping into Billy and Carlos at the entrance to the room who didn't notice their dear friend and Arcee since they were too busy sucking face.

Rad could make out the outlines of Hot Shot and Wheeljack at the main table leaning close together on their way out. In the hall, past Billy and Carlos, a little closer to the rooms, Shockwave was leading Bluestreak outside with his giant servos on the Datsun's shoulder and the blue post-human could see Demolisher being led to another room by Slipstream who had a mischievous look in her optics, as per usual. In the back of Rad's mind, he chalked not seeing Alexis, Firestar or Fred up to the fact that the green Seeker hated parties and most likely had flown off to avoid Moonie's gratitude and Fred and Firestar had almost certainly gone to their own room to enjoy the time off allowed by Sentinel for the night. Rad probably wouldn't see any of them until they left to go back to boot camp.

Arcee gave a sweet giggle, "I may be overenergized, but I at least had the forethinking—forethink-forethought! To get a room. The key's in my gun holster…I think."

Rad sighed. In spite of the good deed he and his friends had done for the two factions, he supposed there was no getting around dealing with drunk party guests and girls who you had the biggest crush on. Heroics, it seemed, were forgotten for the sake of normalcy.


End file.
